


Can't Even Tell if This is a Dream

by Athenias, Hekaerge-Athenias (Athenias)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Body Modification, Demigods, F/F, F/M, Half of this was written while listening to Shawn James and no, High Fantasy, I will not be taking criticism, Idk if its too obvious but, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, More to be added bc shit gets wild bro, Necromancy, Original Character Death(s), Original Characters - Freeform, Past Relationship(s), Questionable definitions of Immortality, Sci-Fi, Southern accents, Temporary Character Death, Vent Piece, accidental murder, british accents, except they all use modern slang for absolutely no reason, i would say, its ok tho they get better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2019-12-27 02:36:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18295136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athenias/pseuds/Athenias, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athenias/pseuds/Hekaerge-Athenias
Summary: This work is a composition of a series of drabbles from numerous projects and concepts of mine. Most of them are under temporary names that I'll refer to them until this changes, and if they are temporarily named you'll absolutely be able to tell. Drabbles come from the following worlds;The Binary Star Objective (Sci-Fi)-WALL-E except everyone has guns?Fantasy Groundhog Day (Fantasy (duh))-Lower gods love and resurrect their dead gay childrenMonster Mash (Contemporary Fantasy)-the literal Wolf of WallstreetQueen's Eye (Sci-Fi Fantasy)-Overwatch but make it goodSanctum Monster Hunter Network (Contemporary Fantasy/Sci-Fi bastard child)-Aliens?Spoiler alert: No one's straight in the main casts because I said so





	1. I Can Recall Somethin That's Gone From Me (So Move Me)

 

Nyctea spits into an aging porcelain sink, barely sparing a glance to the blood that pools in the basin with her saliva. Lights flicker sporadically overhead, the constant hum of struggling lightbulbs becoming too loud in her head, so busy with thoughts. Uncovering a pill bottle with a wince to the pain that courses up her side from the bullet she'd pried out minutes prior, she swallows the glowing yellow nanites like second nature. The burn of whiskey that follows is just as familiar, shaking hands setting the bottle down on the counter. The yellow lights stop flickering overhead. Just for a moment. Then it continues.

 

Like clockwork, she sees her own tired green eyes turn peaceful, lip curling into a wry smile that doesn’t match her own frown. Blimey. This again. “Doctor’s orders said to kick this habit of yours,” coos the twin version of herself, reaching through the glass barrier to poke her with a cold finger. But it's not the twin she has burned into the back of her irises, tired and broken yet still a better man than she'd ever been. If Nyctea would close her left eye, she would see nothing but her own reflection. But she doesn't. Ever the weaker twin. “You’re destroying yourself.”

 

“It should matter nothing to you,” she hears herself mumble, head falling and eyes making to focus on the sink. She can almost hear the old explanations, the clinical voices explaining to her that the experiment would... change with her if she stopped taking care of her body.“Go back from where you came from, spectral.”

 

Her reflection is seated on the counter next to her, now. Still wearing an identical tank top and sweats, their human legs swinging against the rotting cabinets. They continue on, ignoring her, “drink, fight, repeat. You know, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you  _ wanted _ to—“

 

Her shaking hands grip the sink until her knuckles turn white. The porcelain strains under her grip, threatening to crack. “—You know  _ nothing _ about me.” Taking in a wet breath full of blood, her internal organs burning as they struggle to work with the nanites to repair the damage of today’s scuffle, “Not since you last left me.”

 

The spectral falls silent.  “Then prove me wrong,” they say, in a quiet voice. Too gentle for the purpose it so  _consistently_ served, “Go out there and face your ghosts. If I know you, you won’t. You’ll run. Like always. Funny how that shit works, innit?”

 

_ Enough _ . Nyctea has had enough of this game. “Fine,” she bites, backing away one step at a time, maintaining eye contact with her twin image. “Eat your own words, spectral. And heed mine; you cannot keep your hold on me forever.”

 

When she blinks, the collected version of herself is gone. The real version of herself slams the bathroom door behind her. causes as much unnecessary noise as possible. She takes an unneeded moment to steel herself at the door, taking a deep breath that leaves her lips unsteadily. Throwing open the door before she can convince herself that inside this damned musty motel room is safer, she meets a face nearly identical to her own that has her taking pause, with more squared features and far kinder eyes staring down at her. This new, living spectral adjusts his glasses with the hand free of burn scars.“Aves,” she says with a breathlessness like she hadn't taken a lungful of air the entire night, eyeing him. “Thought you’d be with—”

 

“—No,” he says quickly, tired eyes turning away from her for the briefest of seconds, to a room down the hall. There's no light on inside, unlike her's. “He needs rest. But I just— did you mean what you said? About your bounty?”

 

“I— that was before—”

 

“—Answer the question, Nyctea.” He’s holding his breath, she knows. Waiting for the truth and only the truth. He wouldn't accept anything else, now. God, he's going to be an absolutely insufferable twat if he keeps this up.

 

So be it, then. 

 

“Yes.” She holds her head up high, meeting Ave’s gaze. He doesn’t respond. She doubts he could. What would he say then? That he knew all along? No. Her brother might be smarter than her, but he's still equally as oblivious.

 

_ “Kill me, Joel. Do it. Go collect my bounty; It’ll go to a far better cause than I ever was. Then you can find your peace, and my damned soul can go meet my brother in the afterlife.” _

 

“Every word of it.”


	2. Raise the Dead for Fun and Profit!

Neither Mercedes nor Arlen turn around when Jamie takes Sasha’s body into his arms and vanishes into a room typically locked from the inside, too busy arguing amongst themselves to focus on their next move. They had, after all, been looking into something Arlen saw in the forest.

Fortunately for them, Jamie’s already one step ahead of the game. 

He lays Sasha down in the center of his lab, trying to push the unnatural cold of her skin out of his mind. He should be used to it by now— years of dragging their lifeless bodies back to this house was more than enough to get him used to the absence of warmth. But with her, it’s not… it’s not right to see the light drained from her, save for the glowing and cracked skin on her left palm, the glove covering it already removed and discarded.

From somewhere else in the house, Arlen shouts at Mercedes and a door slams. They’d done this the last time Sasha died on her own, too. Except Fenris…

Jamie thinks, already circling Sasha’s corpse to get to his desk, shuffling through unorganized papers until he finds a flimsy piece of chalk at the bottom, that without Fenris, he has no choice but to succeed in this. In order to find him, they need Sasha. Mercedes and Arlen just didn’t seem to know this, too caught up in their losses. But Jamie does. He’s known it from the moment he sat shell-shocked and covered in blood that wasn't his own as cloaked figures of untapped power hovered over lifeless corpses, waiting to be returned to their bodies by divine intervention. 

This is something he has to do.

So he draws out runes upon runes across the room, on the walls. Paints them on his skin, then Sasha’s. For good measure, he draws out the Paladins’ sigil on the back of her marked hand. 

From somewhere in the house— “Jamie?”

He has to do this. 

For everyone.

He has to be quick about this before he can be found out, he knows. None of the four know this dark work of his, the times he’s plucked flesh from his arm and turned it into some ungodly monstrosity, or spent hours upon hours painstakingly working on a ritual that could force souls from their holding planes, back into their bodies. But if he does this now, only one person would know.

Sasha wouldn’t come back quickly, this time around unless he did this. The poison in her blood was rotting her from the inside out at an accelerated speed. He'd seen it happen once before, long before this journey of his began.

So he throws in a healing rune for good measure.

Scanning his document, Jamie begins the chant, hands falling limp at his sides, knees tucked under him safely. Blood drips from his nose as he plows on, ignoring the increasing pain in his body. The candles around him flicker in the changing air. Silently, in the back of his mind, he begs Aias and Inacio to grant him this one blessing.

Footsteps approach from the other side of the room, too late to stop him from the point of no return.

Now, he’s more than someone researching Necromancy for curiosity’s sake.

Methodically, Jamie presses his knife against Sasha’s skin until the skin breaks. The blood running down his face drops to the floorboards, but not before his mouth fills with copper.

Now, he’s a necromancer.

Suddenly, white fills his vision. He doesn’t strain against the appearance of Sasha as his eyes adjust, her glowing, cloaked form hovering above her body like a sole victor in a long-fought war. An animalistic grin in the darkness of her hood melts into a look of shock before she’s unceremoniously roped back into her body by Jamie’s final verse.

He sees her lift her head off of the floor not a moment later, coughing up blood and mercury. She manages to look up at Jamie, and, for a moment, he feels shame. Only a moment. Down at his core, though, he knows he’s done the right thing, even if through the wrong means.

He doesn’t get a chance to explain, because not a millisecond later his eyes are rolling into the back of his head and he’s crashing to the floor, just in time for Mercedes and Arlen to slam the door.

His hearing is the last sense to go, Fenris once admitted, perched in an open window. Hearing is the last sense to go, and every time he’s never found comfort in the words spoken to his lifeless body. 

Though he isn’t dying, it makes sense that he can hear, through Mercedes and Arlen’s hurried questions, a quiet and croaking question from Sasha, her marked hand warm against his forehead.

“Why?”

Terrifyingly, Jamie finds he no longer has an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No context for this because it's kind of a spoiler??? But fuck who gives a shit it's AO3 and I'll probably be posting worse


	3. Stay (And Keep the Hat)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in: Queen's Eye  
> Takes place before Nyctea's first one shot by a good five months.

Joel wasn’t expecting to be the first person to show up to Panthera’s new hideout, if he’s going to be entirely honest. Sure, he knew he wouldn’t be the _last_ , but still, he’d hoped that at least some of his old squad would show up. Instead, he walks through an empty and dirt-filled courtyard with a ratty duffel bag over his shoulder, twisting a blue raspberry lollipop around his mouth. He keeps his gaze trained on the cracked door ahead of him. “Your security system needs some fixin’, doll,” he calls out to nowhere as he passes a dormant turret. A crash sounds from somewhere inside the room before him, and a familiar face soon throws open the door, her hair in disarray as usual and bear tattoo terribly covered by a bunch of bandages under her shorts.

 

“You scared the daylights out of me, Joel!” She cries, pulling him into the building by a free arm. She kicks the door shut with her foot. “I couldn’t recognize you without your hat, thought you were one of those bandits!”

 

Without thinking about it, Joel reaches up to the top of his head, feeling for a hat long gone. “Er… Yeah. Been meaning to get a new one.”

 

Ursula glances to him over her shoulder, leading him up a flight of stairs with a bounce in her step. There are boxes haphazardly scattered through the halls, some opened and emptied. Others have sticky-notes slapped on the top, noting the contents and when she plans to empty them. “Thought you and that hat were inseparable. What happened?”

 

Now that’s got Joel’s step faltering. But only for a split second, because his old friend continues on, undisturbed. “Gave it to someone special for safekeeping some few years back. Guessing you were a bit too tied up to hear about it at the time. But I told ‘im to come back with it…and I reckon you know how the rest goes.”

 

If she feels any pity or sympathy for Joel, she doesn’t let it show on her face or in her words. But he can see her hands, moving for the switchblade in her back pocket without thinking about it. “Right,” she says, voice quiet. “Your room’s gonna be right around here,” she says, blowing the dust off of a keypad. She slaps a post-it note right above it, and hastily writes down Joel’s name. And, right underneath it, Zero-One. “Since you’re the first person to show up, or respond to my message at all, for that matter, you get one of those fancy rooms with the bathrooms. Password’s set to the usual for now, we’re gonna change ‘em up when there’s more than two of us here. I should be able to get the Panthera AI back online, but until then just shout if you need me, yeah?”

 

And with that, things fall back to some sort of order. Joel wanders around the compound for a long while, punches some panels in attempts to get things working (Matthias was insistent it worked on the bases if it worked on the carriers), and ultimately resorts to testing out the shooting gallery Ursula had set up a few days prior. When he tires of the targets, he wanders around until he finds the kitchen, and, subsequently, Ursula. She was in the middle of wrangling MREs free from a box, and regarded him with a weak smile and a quick question of whether or not he was hungry for… roast beef sandwiches. When given the affirmative, she throws a bag directly at his face.

 

They don’t talk through most of the dinner, Ursula following three screens at once. But then, like a crack of lightning, she throws away all but one screen with a dramatic swoop, releasing a prolonged groan as her head slumps to the table. “You alright, there?” Joel asks through a mouthful of bland, bland sandwich. She groans in response, and turns the screen to him. In the left, he can see rows upon rows of notifications of soldiers that accepted her message. The one blown up on the rest of the screen, however, tells of a decline of the message, with a simple explanation.

 

_I don’t have the time to catch up with ghosts, Ursie. Have fun playing the hero. x_

 

“Well, ain’t that a little harsh. But it’s understandable, if ya think about it, considering how many people lost someone in the--”

 

Ursula lifts her head up from the table. “--That’s Nyctea’s response.”

 

“That a fact?” She nods, weakly, fixing her posture. “She try and… open yer connection or whatever the hell it is y’all got going on?”

 

“No. Nyctea’s been… adamant on not letting me see through her eyes, and she seems keen on not knowing what I’ve been up to. I mean, I get it. Panthera took Aves from her. But doesn’t she ever think about how the rest of us lost people, too?” With a sigh, Ursula pulls open another screen. A chat long, correspondances with a soldier Joel had never met. “I mean… _You_ showed up, Joel. Between the two of you, I’d thought you’d be the one to say no.”

 

“Nyssie’s got her own battle to fight. I’ve already lost mine, so there’s no harm in trying to win the war instead.”

 

Ursula suddenly looks so much more tired than before, a sigh escaping past her lips. “That’s not what I meant, Joel.”

 

Joel leans back in his chair, tipping his head to the ceiling. Dark hair falls from his face, and he pulls a skewer from his mouth. “I know.”

 

After they clean up, Joel and Ursula don’t cross paths. At some point, the AI turns on, sudden and abrupt enough that Joel nearly falls off of the roof, and alerts any inhabitants that the com link would be opening soon to any soldiers en route to the campus. It tells Joel that Nyctea had no updated file in Panthera’s database from the time he signed out of the system but happily supplies him with her current bounty. It also tells him that this base was once an outpost for the evac squadron, and is equipped with several vehicles in the garage. And that, from his squadron, only one person had declined Ursula’s message. He doesn’t bother asking who. Instead, he asks for the files on other soldiers he’d never had the chance to meet, and scrolls through them, occasionally asking questions to the AI.

 

By the time midnight rolls around, the AI gently urges him to go to sleep. Something about sleep schedules and efficiency. So he does. No dreams greet him. Not even a ghost of a touch he’s painstakingly mourned for the past six years.

 

And yet he still wakes up panting, in a cold sweat, reaching with one hand for his gun and the other to pat an empty space next to him. Wild, wild eyes falter, hand leaving the cold space to instead brush stray hair from his face. “Panthera, what time is it?” He croaks, tossing his gun back under his pillow unceremoniously.

 

“One thirteen AM, mister Guerra. Is there anything you need?”

 

“A therapist?” Joel tries.

 

“I can equip myself with as much knowledge accessible to me on human mental health, if you’d like.”

 

“No, no, that’s fine. It… It was a joke.” Joel sighs deep, bringing his tired body from his bed and to his bag by the door. "Is Ursula awake?”

 

The AI hums. “Yes. She’s currently on the western roof.”

 

So that’s how he ends up here, standing a foot away from a small woman halfway off of the roof, her shaking hands tying an eyepatch around the back of her head. She doesn’t acknowledge Joel, and doesn’t seem to have the slightest idea that he’s there. “Your eye tryn’a see things your way again?” He asks, voice as low as he can make it. Ursula flinches, but only regards him with a small smile.

 

“No,” she says, “no, I wasn’t lying to you. I just… Don’t want her to see me like this. All tired and not like myself.” Her hands stop trembling, for a fraction of a second, as she traces over the bear on her thigh. It shifts, stretching across the expanse of her skin with its jaw dropping into a yawn. The only tell that Ursula had even considered opening the connection to Nyctea.

 

“Yeah, well, mind if I sit a spell? Reckon you don’t mind my sorry ass being here as much as her spyin’ in.” Ursula nods, gesturing to the spot to her right with her head. Joel throws his legs over the ledge, leaning forward on his knees. Her lips press into a thin line, her only visible eye flickering to the moon, then Joel, and back again. “Alright, missy, spit it out. What’s botherin’ you?”

 

“I-- It’s just-- what were your last words to him? Before?”

 

Before.

 

Ursula’s eyes are far away, now, no longer focused on Joel, but some far, far away memory. He can recognize the look like the back of his hand-- recognizes it from his own visage in the mirror, and blatant in Nyctea’s angered expression from a rooftop over. Her shaking hand stops, resting on her left thigh. “You don’t have to tell me,” she says, turning from the moon to look at him. “But… it’d be better to just get this over with now, yeah?”

 

Joel doesn’t say anything. His commander deflates, rubbing at her eye under the eyepatch.

 

“You’re right, probably shouldn’t dig skeletons out of the--”

 

“--I was gonna go on some international mission in Russia. Aves had tried to get himself booked on it, argued with Carmela for hours about how he doesn’t trust anyone but himself to deal with me since that time I tried to punch the doctor. Truth was, he was just _worried_. Turned out our chances of surviving this mission were slim ta none. An I didn’t know how to reassure him, y’know? So before I was gonna leave, I gave him my hat, told ‘im that I’d come back for that damn thing. He’d laughed, and gave me a kiss. We didn’t say goodbye or nothing, never did that sort of thing.” Joel breathes deep through his nose. He sniffles loudly into his hand, eyes downcast. Quietly, he tells himself not to cry. Not in front of Ursula. Instead, he pulls a lighter from his jacket pocket, and a cigar from the other. “Wish I told ‘im that I loved him, though.”

 

“I told Carmela I never wanted to see her face again. It was stupid and childish, looking back on it, getting all hot and bothered because I wasn’t able to go with Nyctea to Russia. ‘What’s a queen without her eye’, I’d said.” Ursula’s shoulders rise and fall. “Panthera shouldn’t be mine to lead. Not when I left her to die thinking I didn't love her.”

 

Joel huffs, blowing smoke into the warm night air. “It was either gonna be you or me, tellin’ from how she used to talk about the future of Panthera. Honestly, I’m glad it ended up being you, ‘cause I’d make some stupid ass decisions. Plannin ain’t really my thing. But hell, if I wasn’t good at shooting the shit out of bad guys and lookin’ pretty.”

 

Ursula laughs, a quick and breathless thing. Slowly, she leans back onto the roof, tilting her head to the sky. “Agree to disagree, Guerra.”

 

A beat.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Any time.”

 

_____

 

It takes an entire month for enough agents to show up for Joel to finally get sent out on a mission. “It’s most likely a trap,” Ursula had said, gesturing to the screen blown up behind her. No sender listed, so it wasn’t one of them. The message itself was a pair of coordinates, and a brief message. _Panthera needs a weapon upgrade._ , it reads, _Send your marksman-- He’ll return with everything you need. Security is heavy, but you’ll be graced with some help tonight._ “But it’s all we’ve got.”

 

“Definitely a trap,” agrees Phoenix from his seat, twirling a pen from finger to finger. The artificial joints in his hands creak with every movement. He pushes his rolling chair to the agent standing by the door, hidden beneath a veil of dark hair. “You should send Eli, commander.”

 

“I will not enter a trap alone,” Eli says, their dark eyes narrowing when their friend only grins. “Guerra should go, like the message orders. If it is a trap, I can eliminate the threat. If not, then my help would have been void, but a good precaution.”

 

Eyes turn from Eli to Joel, who seems to be engrossed by the message, a pen halfway in his mouth. “It’s your call, Urs,” he says dismissively, “but the fella’s right, our weapons are shit. I’d’ve died in half a year out in the west if I hadn’t got my pop’s guns with me.”

 

Ursula fixes her reading glasses, turning back to her projection of the message. After a moment, she sighs, and pushes her glasses to her head. “Eli, Joel, be ready to leave an hour after dinner. We’ll have to make this quick.”

 

The mission goes off without a hitch. It takes an hour to find the right weapons and ammo, and a good fifteen minutes for Ursula to come in and heft the heavy containers over her head with a small grunt of acknowledgement. They’re making another sweep through the building when there’s a group of shouts, behind a wall of shipping containers. A gutted shout joins in with them, a bright light seeping through the cracks of the containers. Not a second later, the containers crumble to the ground, one or two sent flying with armed men trapped in human-shaped indents.

 

“We’ve got company!” Joel shouts into his coms, already barreling back to get a better view of the attacker through the dust and debris rising all around them. The dragon on his back stirs, burning heat into his skin. “Super Soldier, from the looks of it!”

 

“I’ve got visuals on the hostile,” Eli’s cool voice sounds from his ear. There’s a flicker of movement, transparent and shimmering, through the dust clouds. “Taking immediate action. Handle the stragglers, Guerra.”

 

“Already on it, kid.” Joell huffs, shooting down a soldier that stupidly decided to stop playing dead to try and get out of his shipping container prison. “Ursula, got any idea which one of your men this could be? Bright light, sends seismic waves out after the bond’s set loose?”

 

“The Hayes were our only soldiers capable of doing that. And last I checked with Nyctea, she was in Santa Fe.” Ursula stumbles over some of her words, but trudges on. Poor girl’s got the jitters. Anyone would. “But maybe someone’s managed to recreate their specific ability? It’s a possibility, considering there’s no telling whether or not our medical files were breached in the explosion.”

 

Joel can see more clearly through the dust, now that it’s started to settle. He can see the shimmering form of Eli, snaking around the figure gingerly stepping over their makeshift door, brushing debris from his shoulder, adjusting the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His shape feels familiar to Joel, distant but _there_ , and the glow fading from his skin seldom helps with the nostalgia. The stranger freezes at the sight of Joel, hands freezing on either elbow. Almost absently, he reaches to his left hand to grip the palm. Then he’s stumbling forward, closer and closer until--

 

Eli brings their leg around to the stranger’s front, sending him toppling to the ground. They phaze back into a solid shape when the man in turn slams a fist into their ankles, a move that causes them to tumble atop of him. “Engaging in lethal combat,” they say with a grunt, the figure punching them in the cheek and shoving them off, nearly tripping over his feet as he approaches Joel with a more frantic speed. The dust settles, once and for all, and Joel can now make out a black cowboy hat on the man’s head, torn at the edge and covered in debris, with the bullets stowed in the band around it still in perfect shape.

 

“Well I’ll be damned,” is all Joel can make out before he’s rushing forward, his skull pounding and dragon burning. His mind is blissfully blank, chanting only one name, over and over, only growing louder when he approaches to see pale eyes illuminated by fluorescent lights, white hair falling to his collar bones in neat, straight lines. “Eli, disengage!”

 

“But they’re a _threa--_ ”

 

“Not to us.” Joel doesn’t try to pull some cheesy, romantic union like his dumbass heart tells him to. Instead, he takes one brief glance to the gun in his left hand, shouts “Aves!” and chucks it in his general direction. “Where the fuck have you _been_?” He cries out as he slams the butt of his gun into an Obsidian soldier trying to get the get on him.

 

Aves presses his back to Joel’s, adjusting the black hat that’d gotten worn from years of aging and fighting. “Long story,” he says after a moment. He moves a burned hand into the corner of Joel’s vision to fire at someone in the rafters. “You’ll get the whole thing later. Bodge up right quick? Don’t have a good angle. Thank you, love. Short version is that the Obsidian Horde’s a bit miffed I didn’t bother staying captive for longer than four years, and I’ve apparently missed absolutely nothing news-wise. Well, minus me being out of a job for a good half second before Ursula decided we've still got a use.”

 

The last guard falls dead with a blade through his back. Eli doesn’t look all too happy with the new situation, but joins the three regardless. “You got any news about what the fuck’s happening now?” Joel asks, putting his guns away while Aves pulls a hefty one off of a fallen soldier.

 

“Reinforcements, I’m guessing,” he says, doing a quick inspection of the gun before he deems it usable. “We have a good fifteen minutes before we get here, so it should do some good to get some of the crates out while we still can.”

 

With that, Aves sets off down the hall in a flurry, gun slung across his back and a crate in his arms. Eli follows quick behind, brows furrowed and face set into an expression that clearly displays their distrust. “Did the rest of y’all catch that?” Joel says to no one in particular, hand pressed to his com.

 

“Eli was transmitting the entire interaction,” says Ursula, her voice unnaturally quiet. “I… I’m happy for you. Doctor Hayes will be a welcome re-addition to Panthera, given that this was his way of accepting my message from beyond the grave, but--”

 

“--I get yer point, sweetheart. Ya mean you’re happy my boyfriend came back from the dead.” Aves tenses from up ahead, a signal that he’d heard him. His face, however, remains impassive as he rounds a corner and pistol whips a soldier.

 

“Y-You could put it that way, yes.”

 

“Well, thank you kindly. We’re rounding to your position, boss lady, so I’d suggest gettin’ everyone together.” Joel picks up the pace until he’s nearly next to Aves, just far enough away for Eli’s ever tense shoulders to stay vaguely loose, but just enough to keep them on edge. The door to the warehouse creaks open when Aves pulls it open with his free hand. “Reckon we got room for one more on that ship of ours?”

 

He can hear a smile in her voice. “I reckon we do, cowboy.”

 

_____

 

Aves’ hand shakes when he sorts through the medical equipment at the table, methodically turning over every syringe and even forcing Joel to help him test a stethoscope. All the while, he relays a brief, edited detailing of the last five years of his life. He hadn’t died in the explosion, obviously, and explains that he had woken up strapped to an interrogation chair with a peeling arm that could hardly move as is. They’d tried to pry medical files from him, Panthera secrets. He implies that if he’d given anything useful up other than an embarrassing detailing of his sister’s unhealthy habits, he’d be a dead man. That, however, doesn’t stand out to Joel.

 

“It was comforting, knowing that my sister and Joel were alive,” he says, rattling years old pills with a disgusted look. “Though I’d prefer to not find such information out by some distressed Obsidian Horde soldiers yelling about half of their numbers dropping like flies, rambling on about a rampaging hobo with super strength, a robot,  and a woman who killed faster than the soldiers could think.” Leveling Joel’s flabbergasted expression, “neither of you have ever been quite as subtle as you think when you are… distracted. At least Phoenix had the decency to kill everyone who saw him.”

 

“A _hobo_ ,” is all Joel mutters, immediately reaching up to twirl his shorter hair between two fingers. “The long hair wasn’t that bad, was it?”

 

No one dignifies him with a response. Aves hides his reaction behind a convenient file he’d recognized as being from one of his friends, some therapist of small infamy. The name is vaguely familiar. Can’t place where for the life of him. The debriefing continues on— Aves tells them that he’d escaped a year prior to running into Panthera in person, but what with the organization being no more, his sister never in one place due to her bounty, and Joel too busy bringing down every Horde soldier-- Obsidian or Fanged-- in the grand state of Texas. So he’d taken one of Joel’s old fake IDs, fitted it to his medical license, and started up an extremely shady medical practice to patch up shadier people. There’s a shame in the words that follow, one masked behind a smile so blatantly a replica of his sister’s. “And no one really notices when criminals die, do they? Always chalk it off to being MIA. Fascinating thing, innit?”

 

And Ursula, sweet, sweet Ursula, turns crimson with shame. It’s not her fault, Aves assures her, though it does little to ease her worries. But Joel doesn’t feel quite as convinced. The way his story sits with him doesn’t feel right, just knowing the doctor the way he does. “We should’a been able to pick up a disruption in the Horde’s Numbers, if you took out as many people you’re implyin’ you sacked. Now, shoot me if I’m wrong, but my gut tells me that you thought about that. Care to share it with the class?”

 

Aves sends a sharp glare his way, before decisively wiping white hair from his face. “I spent five months of that year catching up on the news I’d missed. The rest were tying up loose ends, nothing that Panthera, god bless it, would be able to pick up and be able to trace back to me.”

 

Eli distorts their face to a vague look of disgust, still sitting obediently still as Anastasia braids their mass of hair. Joel catches a glimpse of a glowing tattoo, but not enough to know what sorta spirit they’d ended up with. Ursula seems to move on immediately from the situation of Aves’ gap year, entirely missing the look that passes from him to Joel. A quiet reassurance that he’d get the truth, when he’s able to share it.

 

“Then,” Ursula says, after Aves falls silent, seemingly done with his explanation, “I’d like to offer an… unofficial proposal to you. Now, I’m not sure if you’re still willing, but we’re in need of a— uh— a Doctor. It’s hard enough for us to find an office willing to take subjects of the SSE, but it’s totally fine if that’s no longer your scene, ah—“

 

“—Blimey, Ursula,” is all Aves says, holding up a hand to silence the commander. “We both know that Panthera would fall to pieces with me. Not to bash on Doctor Denholm, bird's brilliant, but I doubt you can all stay in one piece for the three months it takes for her to get back to the States.”

 

Joel pulls the tip of his pen from his teeth, pointedly gesturing to Ursula. “He’s right, ya know. When’s the last time any of us got a good and proper check-up? Last time anyone here had to stitch themselves up instead of goin’ to the hospital?” The agents mumble to themselves, all vague answers.

 

Nailing the point home himself, Aves looks up from his coworker’s medical files. Just for a moment. His eyes are distant, looking past Ursula and Joel to some long lost memory. “When was the last time someone made sure Queen’s Eye wasn’t destroying you?” This doesn’t seem to be prompted by Joel’s rampant support in bringing back their best doctor, he can tell from the way that he starts inching closer, hands still gripping the edge of the table to steady himself.

 

If Joel was going, to be honest, he’d nearly forgotten that Queen’s Eye was a threat to the subjects. Nyctea has never mentioned it herself, always Carmela in passing during missions, ever the doting older sister.

 

“I would know. Besides, considering neither of us _use_ Queen’s Eye anymore, I wouldn’t consider it a problem.” She brushes hair from her face with a huff, nose wrinkling. Aves eyes her suspiciously at her defensive tone, but nevertheless rolls his chair back into position.

 

“Doesn’t matter. What _does_ is how dodgy your whole operation is, starting off without a medical professional. Not that it means anything now that I’m here, but it does raise some concerns. Not in your leadership, Ursula, do not look at me like that. We just need to start having some group discussions, have everyone undergo a physical, keep everyone in one piece, then Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt.” Aves pushes up Joel’s old hat to expose his broad grin, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

 

“...what?”

 

“Something them fancy British folks say when they get excited, don’t mind yourself none about that, Phoenix.”

 

And that’s how Aves ends up clearing out the old medical bay, instructions sent to Ursula on what they needed before any high stake missions could start. Joel helps, of course, he does, because he needs to get a better read on the poor bastard. Nothing’s amiss on a surface level, but his gut tells him that he’s got to be missing something. And if past experiences are anything to go by, he’s wary as to the whole situation of finding out why they aren’t all over each other like two teenagers.

 

Turns out, Joel doesn’t have to ask nor stick around to get some answers. Under the guise of getting his physical out of the way since _someone_ (he’d glared at Ursula) wasn’t up for it, he’s practically manhandled into one of the old hospital beds, forced to strip off his top and onto his stomach. Cold hands trace up the expanse of his back, an equally cool voice to pair with it speaking in a voice barely above a whisper. “They’ve been calm?” Joel gives an affirmative. The Wyrm Dragon inked to his back only grows warmer under his touch, itching to get closer. Close enough to touch, close enough to hear his heartbeat. “Mine isn’t.” It’s barely above a whisper, able to completely slip by Joel if his hearing had been just a little worse.

 

“You gonna elaborate on that bit, darling?”

 

Aves hums, forcing Joel back into a sitting position and pulling out another one of those instruments— what was the name? The thing with the light. He knew what that fuckin thing was called a few minutes ago, he swears. “The dove worries. About us. About Nyctea. Mostly the former.” He peers up from the tablet in his hand, expression set to a calm professionalism. Except—

 

With his right leg using Aves’ left to pull him closer to him, Joel reaches an unthinking hand up to press out the creases between his brows. There’s a wicked bruise forming on his cheekbone already, though neither of them pay it any mind. “Haven’t got a clue as to why that’s so.”

 

“You’re not—“

 

“—Angry? Bet your pretty bottom I am, but that ain’t no thing you should worry your pretty little head about. Could never be mad at you for this long even if I tried.” Aves scrunches up his face, the look he always gets when Joel says ‘ain’t’. The underlying reminder of how ‘ain’t’ isn’t a word and ‘double negatives aren’t grammatically correct’ glares up at Joel, a reminder that this isn’t a whole new person standing in front of him.. “Nah, I’ve got a bone to pick with the Horde.”

 

They stay like this, for longer than what either would deem even remotely professional. Joel breaks the silence with, “I reckon you’re keeping the hat?”

 

“Naturally. How else can I guarantee that you’ll let me keep coming back for you, warts and all?”

 

Joel lets out a breathless chuckle, shaking his head. “I haven’t got a clue what that last part meant, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t missed that voice of yours.”

 

There’s a message, hidden in the kiss that follows, full of the desperation and longing of people apart for far too long than either party had anticipated.

 

_Stay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Local Yeehaw Man finds out his boyfriend isn't dead, more at eleven


	4. A Life For a Life (Year One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Codename: Project Yeehaw Loki  
> Set in: Monster Mash  
> Status of Monster Mash: Indefinite Hiatus (World rework)
> 
> Loki is an energy vampire-- a type of metahuman that borrows abilities from other metahumans, with the consequence of taking part of their soul with it. After committing a murder that the Orensa city council deemed to be due to a "faulty upbringing unsuitable for a Type A Metahuman", he's sent to the rural town of Everton to work on the farm of some orc woman that owed Azriel a favor (supposedly) and, more importantly, was tasked with making sure he didn't run away or kill anyone else. He's given three years until he's allowed to return to Orensa city. But it's year one, right now. And all Loki wants to do is keep himself far away from everyone that knows what he did.

_**June 30th** _

 

Loki’s mind had been shockingly empty for the past day. His current theory, written on the skin just beneath a baggy hoodie sleeve with a pen he’d found underneath the passenger seat, was that this was how the world had decided to punish him. Instead of allowing him the cognitive ability to process exactly what had happened, his mind had simply… shut down. All words fell upon deaf ears. More often than not, the driver in the front had to honk the horn simply to startle him out of his stupor.

 

He can’t stop thinking about the last conversation he’d had with Aiden’s parents. Before he was herded into a government car specifically designed to keep everything he was… capable of to himself. They weren’t cold like that stupid, nagging voice had insisted. Instead, they had only slipped the necklace he’d returned to them before the sentencing back into his pocket, leaned in close, and told him that they'd be here for him when he decided to come back.

 

And he’d almost believed them, stupid as it was.

 

They were always too kind for Orensa.

 

“Gallagher,” says the rough voice of his driver, some buff bird-like creature that he hadn’t had half the mind to pinpoint the exact race of. He turns down the radio that had been filling the car with white noise that Loki could only describe as… unbearably southern. “We’re here.”

 

That means he should get out, right? He scoots over to the left side of the car, tossing the pen back where it had previously been as he raps the tips of his fingers against his knees. Soon enough, Bird-man is holding out the door for him with a tired expression and removing useless magic-silencing handcuffs. It wasn’t as if he could rip bird-mans feathers out from the backseat using nothing but sheer will. He feels wary, watching as Loki pops his wrists. Wary about being near him. Wary and anxious to get home. It hits him in waves, overwhelming to a point where he nearly jumps out of his skin when Bird-man looks away from him and a new emotion introduces itself to the mix.

 

Whoever Bird-man waves over feels… tired. Tired of what, he can't pinpoint. Loki focuses on the area around them as he stifles an involuntary yawn, greenery surrounding him from all sides and fruits hanging down from trees down a path that leads to an old red barn. The unfamiliar person nears, exhaustion slowly masked by childish curiosity. So Loki becomes curious with the newcomer, turning his head to the sound of heavy footfall on dirt. Then he comes face-to-face with a woman with more muscle mass than anything, her dark skin scarred in odd spots, sweat beading across her forehead. Salt-and-pepper hair is cropped short, dark green face set in a permanent frown. “You’re late,” She says in a stern voice, dark, slitted eyes turning from Loki to Bird-man. “Try not to do the same again.”

 

“Sorry, Dana, I’ll make sure that the time isn't real next time,” drawls Bird-man. He turns sharply on Loki. “Gallagher, don’t pull any shit.”

 

“I’m not the troublemaker you put me out to be, sir,” Loki responds mechanically, voice rough from a night spent awake and staring at nothing. “That would be my-- my ex.”

 

Bird-man and Dana look at him for a long, drawn out amount of time. He gets the itching feeling that the two of them had had a lick of sense to look at his record, only to be met with a list of fights that only ended about a year ago. They wouldn’t believe him if he told them that they were all caused by the same catalyst, too. “Well, I should be going. If he becomes a handful--”

 

Dana levels him with a look. He raises feathered hands up in surrender, already swinging open the driver’s door and retreating with impressive speed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

 

Then he’s gone, leaving Loki in the dust with a woman still bursting at the brim with curiosity. “What do you want to know?” He asks, barely able to meet her eye. Considering she’s most likely connected to the government, she’s bound to know the exact details of why he ended up here, which often leads to more questions than answers. Dana’s stern demeanor breaks, for a split second, shock shining through. Then her wall is up again.

 

“You’re just not at all what everyone was making you out to be, kid.” She turns and starts striding down a dirt path, dusting her hands off on overalls. “I was expecting some big and buff guy who could take out a witch with a single look. Not… the skinny little thing you are.”

 

Loki only huffs, shoving his hands forcefully into his hoodie. The heat sears through the fleece. He should take it off soon. He can still smell lingering ambrosia on it, sickly sweet like honey, even past the overwhelming stench of greenery.

 

He decides that he can take it off later.

 

Dana makes sure of informing Loki of two things before he can even escape to the confines of air conditioning. One--

 

“You cannot, and will not, leave this farm without making sure I send Okka with you,” She says, voice still rough as she kicks an apple out of the dirt path. Whether or not she’s limping due to an injury or the rising slope, Loki can’t tell. The house is nearing close, the rocking chair and table now entirely visible.

 

“Who’s Okka?” Loki is quick to ask, always the strategic interrogator. When a swell of pride and affection blossoms within him, entirely alien to him and settling uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach, he knows he’d asked the right question. He supposes that such a thing won’t happen often.

 

“My familiar. You’ll be meeting her soon.” Curious, he thinks, for an orc of all things to have a familiar. Not uncommon-- Trey was a harpy with a hummingbird nearly attached to his shoulder. He wonders if they’re doing well, those two. He’d mentioned something about a financial situation the last time Loki spoke to him.

 

Loki hums, the only response he’s willing to give. The lingering affection for a familiar that wasn’t his leaves him with a painful little smile on his lips.

 

Dana throws Loki’s sad excuse for luggage onto the porch, swinging open the front door with a quick thrust of her hip. “As long as you’re here, eating my food and sleeping in my house, you’ll pull your weight around here. I’m frail and old, and you’ve got good knees and room for growing.”

 

That was the point of him being here, wasn’t it? She couldn’t have convinced herself that he only asked to leave Orensa to get out of doing...well, anything, right? Still, he makes a grunting noise to serve as a response, pulls his luggage off of the porch, and follows Dana into her house. She leads him up creaking stairs in silence, her emotions on standby, opening the floodgates to that crushing empty feeling again. He passes by old photos lining the staircase, photographing her children and a husband present in nearly each and every photo as their kids went through life. He doesn’t have to make any guesses on what happened to this husband, judging by the pang of sorrow that pierces his chest.

 

The floorboards creak on and off as they march to an open door at the end of the hall, bathroom on against the opposite wall. “You’ll be staying here. I sleep across the hall, but you’ll have to knock. Not that I don’t trust you, but I just don’t trust you.”

 

“Of course, ma’am. I don’t blame you.”

 

Dana grunts, shifting her weight off of her supposed bad leg. “It’s not what you can do that I’m worried about, kid. I don't got shit that you can take. It’s not knowing a drop about you other than what you've done that spooks me outta my skin. And drop the damn formalities, will you?”

 

The part of Loki that had been taught proper manners— thank you, Isla’s foster family in the third grade— yells at him that he should continue with these painstaking formalities. The part of him that ran out of shits to give approximately three weeks, one day, thirteen hours and fifteen minutes ago tells him to listen to the scary orc lady. “Sure,” he manages lowly, shrugging his bag onto the quilt tucked into the guest room bed. “I wasn’t kidding about my record, either. I never started those fights.”

 

“No point in defending yourself for something like schoolyard brawls, kid. We’ve all had our fair share of them in these parts,” says Dana, lingering in the doorway. She looks from one end of the room to Loki. “Toughens us up for the real world.”

 

She sounds like his godfather, Loki realizes in the process of abandoning his hoodie on the bed. They both have that rough way of speaking, always about preparing for the real world. The “real world” in his godfather’s terms, however, meant for what he’d been exposed to as a child and how to prevent it. Dana sounds like she knows there’s no preventing the bad.

 

“Kid,” Dana says, a little firmer than before. From the irritation budding up inside him, she must have been trying to get his attention for some time. When she sees that Loki is now entirely focused, she continues, “Do you want food?”

 

“Oh… uh, sure.” Loki fiddles with the inside of his sleeves, shifting his weight from one leg to another. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

 

She eyes him warily, eyes narrowing. She picks at one of her lower teeth that hang out above her lips before shrugging, turning around off of the doorframe. “Come on, then. I have some food left on the stove.”

Dana stays decisively quiet throughout most of Loki devouring a plate of spaghetti, seated across from him with her hands folded and eyes cast to the window. But at some point, her attention turns to the boy in front of her, hands unfolding. He turns his head up from the wood grain, signaling her to say what she wanted to with a nod of his head, mouth full of noodles. She nods in return, reaching across the table to point to his chest. “That necklace of yours. Okka says it feels weird. And your record doesn’t list you as a witch.”

 

Loki coughs, intense emotion hitting him. His heart strains painfully and tears well up in his eye. But this doesn’t feel like Dana, no. This is… his own emotions. His own emotions, for the first time since he’d been able to feel what other people feel. “Sorry,” He chokes out, abandoning his fork on the plate. “I—uh— it’s personal. I don’t know if there are any enchantments on it.”

 

Dana feels unsatisfied, only huffing and leaning back in her seat. Scoffing through his tears, he returns to his spaghetti. Is it supposed to be his fault he doesn’t want to open up every tender part of himself to her?

 

No, reasons the sensible side of Loki, she was just curious. Curiosity is never punishable by a negative attitude. At least, that's what his godmother told him. “It belonged to Aiden,” he says, quietly after a while. Dana’s emotions then suddenly shift to a rainbow of varying emotions from pity to confusion, then understanding.

 

“Oh?” She says as if prodding him to elaborate. But she doesn’t have an expectant look on her face, still schooled to a facade of apathy. When he doesn’t seem to take the bait, she shoves herself from the table and pushes a sticking window open. There’s a rustle outside, leaves and sticks crunching under heavy weight. “ _You’re_ scared?” She’s suddenly barking out the window, doubled over in laughter. “You weigh over a ton and can devour him in seconds!”

“Uh,” Loki says slowly, quirking a brow at the spectacle. Dana only holds a hand out to order him into silence, glaring out the window until her hair ruffles with a gust of wind, and golden eyes appear in the window, too large to entirely fit in the windowpane.

 

Dana smirks, turning from the golden eyes to Loki. The swell of pride is back, evening out the sorrow gripping Loki’s heart. “This is Okka.”

 

Now Loki had been expecting Okka to be a dog at the most, some Saint Bernard or sheepdog. What he hadn’t been expecting, however, is a dragon that’s supposedly afraid of him. “How do I… bring her with me?” He asks because that’s obviously the most important question to be asking right now.

 

“Easy. You just wake her up, and she’ll follow you.” Dana shrugs like it was such a simple answer, reaching out of the window to stroke Okka’s snout absently. “You should say hi to her.”

 

“Er… hi, Okka?” Loki says, phrasing it like a question as he strides to the sink to clean his plate. The dragon in the window snorts, Dana’s expression twisting as if she’s holding in laughter.

 

“I will _not_ tell him that,” she manages through sputters of terribly disguised giggles. Then, after a moment, “she says you need more meat on you before she can eat you.”

 

“I didn’t realize I’d agreed to your dragon eating me.”

 

“You did the moment you stepped onto my property, it seems. I advise you to sleep with one eye open.”

 

“Already planned on it,” Loki says, squinting at what might be a speck of food on his plate. Nope, just a stain. “Or, you know. Just not sleeping in general. That’s always a possibility.”

 

Dana only makes a disappointed sort of sound, hand leaving Okka and closing the window. The golden eyes vanish, bringing the setting sun back into view. “Well, whatever your plan is, don’t let it affect your productivity. I’ll be relying on you, kid.”

 

He knows. He really does. But when you can’t sleep from something as stupid as breaking up with your boyfriend, then what do you suppose he should do about… well, _this_ mess? “I’ll try my best, Dana. Goodnight.”

 

“Goodnight,” She echos, pulling a container out from one of the cabinets. “There should be towels under the bathroom sink.”

 

Oh. Right. He should shower, shouldn’t he? It’s been a while. “Thank you.”

 

Dana nods, the closest thing to a ‘you’re welcome’ he would get. So, he does what anyone would do, and makes do with it.

 

He spends his shower rubbing grime off of him with same the force of thirteen-year-old Loki frantically trying to clean the kitchen before his godparents got home, a particularly nasty bruise on his lower chest making it a chore.

 

And when he gets back into his room, wet hair clinging to his face and neck, his mind finally catches up to him. And with it, his emotions. He feels like the air is punched out of him, heart pained beyond before, a desperate sort of despair returning to him. He stumbles blindly to his bed, nearly knocking the duffel bag serving as a suitcase in the process, before collapsing on his side and sobbing, the motion wracking through him and doing reaping on his well-being. He wants to go back in time so _desperately_ , to undo what he’s done. God, what he’s _said_.

 

But he can’t.

 

And that’s what hurts the most, he thinks.

 

⌁

 

_Loki couldn’t remember what had set the two of them off at the time, but after the fact, after he’d agonized over every single syllable to leave their lips in waves of poison, he’d come to the unbearable fact that this had all been because Loki hadn’t wanted to study with him._

 

_The whole argument was a blur, even. All Loki can remember after the fact though, is this;_

 

_“Not everything I do revolves around you, Adonis!” He shouts, a hand pressed against his rib. His chest throbs with the pain of an injury from some stupid fight a few days ago with an idiot trying to show himself up and Adonis being too stubborn to back down. Thankfully, the other guy looked worse than he did. But Adonis’s broken nose said otherwise. Not that that even mattered; Loki is convinced by this point that he pulls stupid moves just so he’d feel the adrenaline of being hurt._

 

 _“That’s not the fucking_ point _! Why can’t you just see what’s so plainly in front of you!” Cries Adonis, running a hand through his hair frantically-- always keeping his hands busy. Loki wasn’t stupid, he knew that he was trying to distract himself from lashing out even more than he already was. At least he was trying, that optimistic part of him says. It’s good that he’s trying, even now._

 

_“Because I can’t see what you’re trying to tell me!” He can’t hear his own ragged breathing under the roaring of his heartbeat. Panic and worry seize him under this anger pointed at no one and everyone-- one that hadn’t been familiar when it was just the two of them in a year._

 

_“God-- You might fail out of school if you don’t study for this, goddammit! I can’t--” Adonis breathes in, deep. Out, slowly. It’s the calmest Loki’s ever seen him in an argument. “I just-- I just can’t let you do that to yourself.”_

 

“What does it matter to you? It’s not your life,” Loki argues, his voice only going down just a tiny fraction. His mind races, going through how-how _Adonis can calm himself down when he gets drunk on the rush, too drunk to back down. There has to be a reason, he can’t just suddenly mature in a year after a lifetime of fighting for no good reason. This-- This, right now, is proof of such._

 

 _But in his theorizing, Adonis’s face twists into something bitter. His green eyes spark back to life with a wicked flame, lip twisted up into a snarl. “But it’s_ your _life, Loki! So if you don’t give a damn about it, go ahead and throw it away! What should I care, right?”_

 

 _So Loki rises to the challenge like he always had. Took a hit from a drug he’d gotten sick of. “Exactly! Hell, I doubt I’ll even fail this fucking final exam! So why_ should _you care?”_

 

_Adonis lets out a frustrated groan, tugging at his hair. “Because I-- God, you’re so fucking hard to love!”_

 

_“Like you’re any different!” He shouts back, feeding into the wildfire that consumes them whole. A voice in the back of his head tries to yell over him, telling him to correct course before it’s too late. His heart strains through the voice shoved to the back of his mind, cutting through it with ease. “If you would stop worrying about your fucking mom’s problems and took care of yourself, we wouldn’t even be having this argument!”_

 

_“Don’t bring my goddamn mother into this!”_

 

 _“Oh yeah? And why shouldn’t I? She’s the reason you’re like_ this _anyway, right?” No, no, no. Loki didn’t mean that Circe doesn’t deserve this sort of treatment she’s trying her best to deal with what Hermes had cursed her kids with. And he’s about to say that, too, no longer angry and instead seized by a sheer, wild, panic of how nothing he’s saying sounds like himself and how there’s still a chance of salvaging this before they revert back to the terrible, poisoned people they were in the past--_

 

_“You know what? Fine. Be like this. But I won’t be around to talk sense to you anymore.” The fire in Adonis’s eyes suddenly extinguishes, gone like a breeze, and Loki’s starting to cry because God, this wasn’t how today was supposed to go, this wasn’t what he was supposed to be saying to him. But his boyfriend hears none of his sobs, already turning around to the door. His nails dig into his palm. Through his tears, he thinks he sees blood draw._

 

_“Adonis, wait, I--”_

 

_He pauses by the door, head turning just a bit. Not enough for him to see his face, just enough to see pale skin and ginger hair. “--Goodbye, Loki.”_

 

_The door shuts too gentle for Adonis. He should have slammed it with all of the force he can muster, or left it open entirely in his rush. God, that means he really fucked up, doesn’t it? Will he even be able to salvage their relationship from this? Would Adonis even listen to what he has to say? No, he won’t. Don’t be stupid, Loki. He insulted his mom, the only person in his life who’s loved him through everything._

 

_“I didn’t mean it,” He croaks to an empty room, hot tears spilling from his eyes to the floor. He can still smell ambrosia in the air. He can still taste Adonis on his lips. Everything’s too quiet now, painful to the roar in his ears. His heart beats out of his ribcage, and self-doubt consumes him whole._

 

_His godparents come into the room not long after with the intent of asking what the yelling was about, met with the sight of their godson curled up on the floor in front of his bed, wiping snot against a bare arm. He looks up to them with red, puffy eyes, and manages in a broken voice that nearly tears them in half, “I didn’t mean any of it.”_

 

_May 14th, 20XX_

 

**_Asshole_ **

_2 missed calls_

 

**_Asshole_ **

_Okay I get that you’re ignoring me but can we just talk this out like_ _civil people? You know, the adults we’re supposed to be right around now?_

 

_May 16th, 20XX_

 

**_Asshole_ **

_Hey_

_I don’t know if you’ve blocked my number but_

_I saw a cat fall off of our fence today_

_[Video attached]_

 

**_Asshole_ **

_I’m guessing you haven’t told Isla yet?_

_She’s still being unbearably nice_

_Or she doesn’t care_

_Nah she loves you too much_

 

_May 26th, 20XX_

 

**_Asshole_ **

_My coffee was bitter today_

_Reminded me of you_

 

**_Asshole_ **

_If you ever want to talk, Adonis, I’m still here._

 

_May 27th, 20XX_

 

**_Asshole_ **

_Hey_

_I still love you_

 

_June 31st, 20XX_

_**You** _

_I'm ready to talk._

_ [Undelivered] _ _⚠️_

 

_⌁_

  _ **July 1st**_

 

Despite his infamy in high school, Loki was never a loud person. He wasn’t used to shouts of glee or raising your voice for emphasis, always surrounded by those who yelled out of anger, and those who were soft-spoken at any hour out of nature and fear of breaking him if they’d simply raise their voices. In both of these environments, he finds himself barely speaking and, when he does, only speaking in a voice above a whisper.

 

So when Dana bursts into his room, shoves open the curtains and proclaims in a booming voice that he “needs to get his ass up” because “the world won’t stop turning for you to brood”, saying that he’s surprised is a bit of an understatement. He awakes with a start the moment she opens the door, blinking dried tears out of his eyes and groaning. He shoves the blanket over his head when she allows the morning light in, but seldom retaliates when she yanks the quilt away from him. He merely gives up and gives in then and there, accepting his cold, blanketless fate.

 

“It’s a new day, kid!” She hollers, slamming a hand on the edge of his bed with an enthusiastic sort of look that doesn’t reach her face entirely. “Up and at them!”

 

“What fucking time is it?” He asks in turn, rubbing at his eyes and instinctively grabbing for a phone that isn’t there. Taken by Bird-man and never returned, some muttered excuse of him ‘plotting’ something. Bastard. The only ‘plotting’ he would have done was devising a plan to get Adonis to talk to him so the two of them could get some sort of closure instead of whatever uncomfortable feeling settles into him whenever he even thinks about him. Dana squints at the window, before shrugging.

 

“Time for you to get the hell up if you want to eat.”

 

Well, that’s one way to get him up. Loki doesn’t get dressed in record-time, but he does get dressed, which is more than he’d been previously willing to. Honestly, he’d just wanted to waste the day away laying in bed staring at nothing and feeling nothing other than the distant reverberation of emotions that don’t belong to him. Even if a part of him, nagging and seeping through the cracks of a wall he’d haphazardly built, told him that he was here to prevent exactly that. Keep yourself busy, it whispers through the cracks, give in to the despair only when the sun vanishes beneath the horizon.

 

“We’re going to have to start small,” Dana says over her shoulder by the time Loki slumps into a chair, a cup of coffee awaiting him. She squints at the pan she’s mothering, shrugging once more before she shoves eggs onto a plate. He wonders if she has sight problems, or if she’s scrutinizing every detail of her life that’s been normal and constant up until this point. He decides that she has an impression to make, in her mind. An impression that she quickly abandons in favor for the cold, hard truth that is her in her actuality. “I’ll show you how to work the field today, but I doubt you’ll get much farther than that.”

 

“Glad to know you have the utmost faith in me,” Loki mumbles as he dumps sugar into his coffee, still trying to shake off some long-forgotten dream that had unsettled him to the core. Dana’s emotions shift to something he can’t quite pinpoint, a plate appearing out of the corner of his peripheral.

 

“You’re weak and bony, kid. Don’t take it personally.”  He doesn’t, he insists, settling into silence with Dana, who once again turns her head to the window, a cup of coffee held up to her lips. There's another feeling that settles into the pit of his stomach, one that he can't name, as Dana rests her elbows against her waist. “How did you even win those fights, anyway? On your record.”

 

He mumbles something incoherent, not very willing to give a personal answer at first. But then, when he remembers that he hadn’t spent his whole life fighting Adonis-- though he was the only real constant-- he speaks. “It’s never about strength, it’s about technique. Besides, have you seen the kinds of metahumans are in Orensa? They’re all twigs. But since there’s so many--”

 

“--You all seem stronger. But you didn’t fight with others, I’m guessing.”

 

“Never liked having someone to back me up. Especially considering what I could do.” But then Adonis came along, that nagging voice pipes up. Someone who he couldn’t take any abilities from. Someone who was something beyond Loki’s understanding. But, he responds to the little voice, he was also the first to leave. “Taught some of them a thing or two, though.”

 

A voice echoes in the back of his head, a voice of the past, that curses and laughs while shouting at another yelling kid to hold his fists higher. To make his punches count, instead of throwing them blindly. The owner of this voice left a fight with a bloody nose and a bruised cheekbone but _god_ was he proud of himself. He was even more proud the next time they fought and he’d lost it, despite the general opinion of others that he was absolutely _pissed_ about finally losing.

 

He shove the voice out with a pained wince. Dana seems unbothered, nodding her head once or twice. “I fought alone, too. Up until I joined the forces. Everything always changes when you find someone worth fighting alongside.”

 

Loki wants to prod and pry, that ever-curious side of him leeching off of the little waves of emotions she sends his way, his heart straining with her, chest blossoming with a fond nostalgia always dampened with that glaring missing piece to a puzzle that had been complete for so long.But he doesn’t. Because that side of him is no longer a piece of his own puzzle, formed into a shape that couldn’t fit against whatever unfinished thing he is as of now. So he distances himself from the misshapen puzzle piece. Out of body, out of mind, right?

 

Dana’s hand waves in front of his once or twice, some distant concern settling uncomfortably in the pit of Loki’s stomach. He blinks rapidly, shifting back to meet her gaze. “You went somewhere,” She says when he only twists his face in confusion. Then, quietly, like she understood where he’d gone and the severity, “Guess it’ll be on me to bring you back.”

 

He doesn’t respond. She doesn’t seem to expect anything from him, watching with a patient eye as he finishes the last of a sickly sweet coffee, more milk and sugar than actual coffee because, once again, out of body out of mind. And when he’s done cleaning his dishes on his own insistence, she nods once, asking simply, “Do you burn?”

 

Assuming she’s painfully aware of his humanity, she can’t possibly mean fire immunity. So, “No.” Dana seems pleased, nodding her head once before kicking open a creaking screen door. She doesn’t beckon for Loki to follow like she’d done yesterday.

 

Dana leads him down a path that veers away from the apple orchard, giving him an explanation that the apple orchard has always been what people go to her for, but her family’s always had witch customers in need of herbs and flowers for potions and spells. She seems… proud of herself. Proud of her family. But it’s all just white noise to Loki beyond the mentioning of witches, his mind wandering to a witch who loved him. He wonders if Adonis, or his mother, ever bought off of Dana. He wonders if Adonis was doing well in general-- he didn’t have an idea of what he wanted to do after High school the last time they spoke about it. Loki had wanted to become a painter. Not that it matters now. But it’s always comforting to him, to recall dreams that had once been so near.

 

“Kid,” Dana says, her voice _just_ loud enough to bring his mind back to his body. Had she been calling him for a while? She glances over her shoulder to him,  rows and rows of greenery set in front of her. “You with me?”

 

“Yeah,” he says, voice coming out a little too strained. He clears his throat, focusing on the grounding of Dana’s unfiltered concern flowing through him. Uses it to root himself in the present. “Yeah, I’m with you. What were you saying?”

 

“I’m going to show you how to harvest the wolfsbane,” She says, pulling and pushing intricate puzzles on the door of a toolshed just a ways ahead. “Just so you know how to do it. After that, I’ll show you how to weed the plants properly, sow the land for new crops that should be arriving in a couple of hours.”

 

Alright, sounds easy enough. He knows how to harvest wolfbane, in the least. A certain Witch he’d once known had been _very_ keen on growing poisonous plants that had a likelihood of killing his wolfy best friend for reasons he’d never quite understood. Cover your mouth with a gas mask, wear gloves up to your elbows and, no matter what, do not rub your eyes. Just don’t do it.

 

Loki was wrong on an inhumane level about the work Dana had set him out for. Three hours later he’s struggling to breathe, his loose hairs sticking to the sweat rolling down from his forehead and down the back of his shirt. In these three hours, however, he’s come to a very simple conclusion revolving his habit of retracting into himself. He decides that if it must happen, there’s a reason. Some otherworldly god that pushes him into reflecting, dwelling on the past instead of moving forward.

 

“Loki,” Dana calls from a tomato patch she’s in the process of harvesting, the back of her arm wiping sweat from her forehead, “Lend me your arms right quick.”

 

He wipes the dirt on his hands off of his jeans, weaving through the rows of crop until he comes upon the source of the voice calling him, crouched down at the furthest tomato vine. Surrounding her, several wooden crates of perfectly ripe tomatoes. “I need you to take these to Okka for me. She should be coming over in a minute or so.”

 

Sure enough, there’s an ever-present sound of wings flapping and a gust of wind hits Loki’s face with such a force it nearly knocks him over. Then there’s an orange dragon standing inches from his face, breath hot against his skin. Okka cocks her head to the side, pupils wide and mouth curled into a smile. Then she bounces backward, forwards, and back again until she’s settling on her stomach, legs sprawled out behind and in front of her. There’s a wooden storage container strapped to her back, tied together around her stomach with leather and chains. “Don’t let her lick you,” Dana warns as Loki hauls up the first crate, struggling to just get it on Okka’s back.

 

He makes a threat to Okka that if she licked him while he was loading up and he dropped the crate, she would have to pick the tomatoes up on her own. She makes a whining sort of noise in response, one that makes Dana snort and an unfamiliar fondness bubble up in Loki. He nearly drops the second crate then and there, it had snuck up on him so quickly.

 

It takes him an hour to get Okka fully settled in, Dana instructing him on how to properly secure the crates with the tie-downs haphazardly attached to the end of the container closest to Loki while gathering wolfsbane into a satchel for delivery later today.

 

Okka rises up to her full height shortly after Loki hops down from her back, towering over even the apple trees behind her. Extending her wings, she twists her lips into a wicked grin, before quickly swooping down and licking the right half of Loki’s face. “Okka you’re so fucking disgusting,” He groans after she pulls away from him smugly, letting out a dog-like bark. He wipes hot dragon spit off of his face while the culprit flees the scene.

 

“I told you,” is all Dana says from the wolfsbane. A swell of sheer joy rushes through Loki, cutting the wind from him. But then it’s gone, just as quickly as it arrived. And Loki feels like himself again.

 

It takes him two months to get into the hang of things. Dana’s still as stern as ever, always barking orders and commands at him when he least expects her to. But she’s progressively become more open to Loki, no longer regarding him as his crime, but as his own person. No longer does she wait in the doorframe to his room until he’s willing to leave the confines of his bed, gaze trained to the rising sun outside of his window. She tells him that he’s making progress-- towards what, he can’t tell. But he knows it isn’t progress towards figuring out who he is, now that everything that made him, well, _him_ is gone. He still finds himself digging his nails into the rotting skin of someone six feet under, latching onto him for dear life. Still finds himself chasing after a ghost that had left him behind. Chasing after a ghost that he still loves.

 

“Hey, kid,” Dana says, breaking Loki from his trance. He’s leaning against Okka’s stomach, one of her clawed arms securing him in place. Both of their gazes remained transfixed on the constellations in the sky up until the orc nestled up to Okka’s face spoke up. “What did you do for fun before you came here?”

 

Fun. What a funny word. Fun used to mean something to him, before he went and fucked everything up in his life. It used to be breaking into school after-hours with Aiden to get cheat sheets of a test neither of them had studied for their sophomore year. It used to be the rush he got when he squared up to some freshman throwing slurs like it meant nothing, the pounding of his heart when Adonis put aside their stupid back-and-forth for once because they _knew_ what it was like to be taunted for who they loved. It used to be a life where he had friends who stuck by him no matter what. But that isn’t what Dana wants to know. “I used to paint,” He says quietly. Paint faces he couldn’t stand to forget, paint scenery that only exists on the plane of his mind. “My godmother always said that if I wasn’t so stubborn about not backing down, painting would’ve made me the most peaceful person in Orensa.” Scoffing, Loki angles his head to Dana. He leaves out the part about how they'd always meet in the middle, and agree that Isla already beat him to that spot.

 

“Painting, huh?” She glances up at Loki with a twinkle in her eye. There’s some unfamiliar emotion that settles in him, one that he chooses to ignore. “I used to make glassware and weaponry when I was younger. I stopped after my kids were born, since they had about the same deathwish as their father, but I’ve been considering getting back into it.”

 

“You should if it makes you happy.” Loki pauses, before continuing, “Just like you should tell me about your kids. I know you want to; every parent I've ever met does.”

 

She shrugs and pops one of her shoulders, hand patting Okka’s jaw absently. “I’ve got three kids. My two daughters, Lior and Meira, are the eldest. Lior’s set to get married in October, and Meira’s studying abroad right now for her master’s in astrophysics. Then there’s my son, Aryeh. He’s a lot like you, actually. Naw, don't give me that look, it's not a bad thing." She huffs, and doesn't bother to hide the smile that makes it past her large teeth. "Last I heard from him he was across the world looking for himself and possibly a forgotten god. He’s real keen on finding forgotten gods.”

 

“I hope he finds what he’s looking for, then. Forgotten gods are never easy to find.”

 

“I appreciate you saying that like you’ve found a forgotten god before.”

 

“Well… I have.” Loki looks away from Dana’s confused expression, looking back to the stars. “One of the nine muses lives in Orensa. Her name’s Euterpe. She’s not really forgotten, but… no one ever knows which muse she is by name alone. I can’t imagine what that’s like. Having droves of people know you by name and worship your existence one century, and the next there’s… no one.”

 

The curse of immortality, a part of him says, is to be forgotten and unable to forget. But he doesn’t think about it like that, anymore. He’d rather be forgotten a thousand times over than to forget the people he’s met and the terrible things he’s done.

 

Dana hums, her emotions evening out to something more akin to nostalgia. “I hope you and Aryeh both find what you’re looking for, Loki.”

 

And for one, gleaming and glaring moment, Loki feels something that isn't regret or the numb feeling of not being here, present on this Earth.. Something that tugs at the edges of his lips and his eyesight goes blurry. So he says the only thing that can escape past his lips, his eyes still trained on that crescent moon in the sky.

 

“I hope so, too.”

 

⌁

**_October 15th_ **

 

“I thought you’d be in here.” Dana’s voice is quiet as if she’s afraid of interrupting. Loki only tilts his head in her general direction, focus still entirely on the canvas propped up in front of him. His jeans are covered in bits of paint, his hands in a similar state. Even his hair has specks of white flakey paint stuck in the strands. “It’s late, kid.”

 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Is all he manages, his brush held meticulously in his shaking hand. He keeps his focus on the canvas-- keeps it on all of the greens and blues illuminated by the moonlight shining through one of the open barn doors. Okka’s snores almost drown out his response entirely, her tail peeking out of the shadows. She’d only glanced once in Loki’s direction upon his entrance before promptly rolling onto her back. The loud snoring continues.

 

And it’s not like Loki’s lying-- he really can’t sleep. His thoughts had become too loud in his head, and he couldn’t stop seeing ghosts in the shadows of his room. So he’d gotten up, gotten dressed, and took the hike out to the barn with nothing but the gnawing urge to get this out of his system. It also wasn’t like he hadn’t done this before-- in the seven months he’s been here, he’d left for the barn nearly five days out of seven. Since he got his paints and canvas supplies, the time he’s spent in the barn went up immensely. Still, a wave of uncertainty that isn’t his own washes over him.

 

He wills his shaking hands to steady as Dana comes into the corner his vision. “I’ll be fine.”

 

“Sure, kid.” Dana’s voice comes out reassuring, but the uncertainty remains seeded in the pit of his stomach, a new wave of motherly concern that just feels so… out of place joining it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“No.” He sets back to work, brush moving quickly across the canvas. Aster flowers adorning the edge of a ravine, colorful opalescent fish caught in the calm current. A picture of serenity that he so desperately seeks. “Yes,” He says after a moment. “What happened to Aiden… I shouldn’t be here, right? I should be dead or given life in prison. And don’t tell me that it’s because I didn’t get proper training-- we all know that’s bullshit. If he could figure out how to control his empathy on his own accord, I could figure out how to not fucking _kill_ someone.”

 

“I wasn’t going to,” Dana says in that quiet, quiet voice. “I know you’ve heard it enough. There’s nothing we can do to change the past. We just have to get up and move forward. Even if you think that his death is on your hands, it doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t blame you or hate you for what you did. Not many of us can say that, you know?”

 

Right. Dana’s lived a whole other life that Loki knows nothing about-- a life she doesn’t trust him to know about yet. He does know that she was in the army, and she lost someone on the battlefield. What he doesn’t know is who this person was, who they were to her, or why she cares so much that she won’t mention it to him.

 

But to each their own, he supposes. Loki doubts she would even be aware of Aiden being the reason he can’t sleep or simply be without breaking down if she hadn’t had access to his record and given a detailed report on his situation. In fact, they wouldn’t be talking with such a level of familiarity right now if it wasn’t for the fact that someone else told the painful part of everything for him. He’d simply ignore her presence as a whole.

 

“Hey, kid,” Dana calls, bringing Loki back into himself before he can drift too far. “You don’t have to pretend to be alright, you know. I know you’re not.”

 

“I know.” He sounds unsure, but it’s entirely the truth. He doesn’t _have_ to act normal around her. And yet he does so, entirely because he needs normality to cling onto as his last thread of hope or else he’ll give in to whatever sour emotion pulls on his leg at the time.

 

She huffs, leaning over to peer at the canvas Loki’s currently nursing. “Tell me about what you’re working on.”

 

Heat rushes to the back of his neck. It scalds him. His paintbrush slips and gets orange right along the side of his wrist. “I… It’s hard to explain.”

 

“Take your time, kid. Not like I’m going anywhere anytime soon.”

 

If that’s the case-- “I’ve always wanted to go into the middle of the forest and find a ravine to just… sit by for hours. Watch the fish swim by. It was cathartic for me, I think, to just imagine the background noise of the current and wind rustling the leaves. Especially when I was going through a rough time. Aiden and I… we used to run away, too. When it got too hard for us, we’d leave after school and run until we made it to the woods outside of town and stay there until we couldn’t keep our eyes open anymore.”

 

The forest was always a comfort to them. Loki cried into his shoulder after Adonis had left, drank away a Friday night with him after he’d nearly died in a fight after school, and climbed the tallest tree just to see if he’d fall and die the night before Aiden had beaten him to it. Now, the forest is a reminder of everything he could have done differently. A painful, painful notification of the life he could no longer live.

 

“And the flowers?”

 

“Aster flowers. My uh… My ex was really into flower symbolism and just… plants in general, so I picked up a few things from him. They’re meant to symbolize wishing things had happened differently. Some sort of sacred flower to the gods that was connected to a myth I wasn’t really listening to.” He doesn’t have to elaborate much on that, but he does anyway. “This painting isn’t really about Aiden entirely, though. When it comes to the flowers, I mean.”

 

“It’s about that ex of yours?” Dana asks, not particularly expecting an answer, from the way her emotions settle in him. But he gives one anyway, squinting at the glare in the water he’s painstakingly painting. Adonis was the hardest thing to talk about with her, because her emotions always got muddy and merged with his own to the point where he couldn’t find where she ended and he began. And he didn’t like it, not one bit. So he’d learned to refrain from ever mentioning him in detail-- even his name is a forbidden topic between the two. Because she doesn’t like to tell her about these mysterious people that she’d lost, and he doesn’t tell her about the man who’d left him in the same way he’d come into his life. Neither of them want to break this silent truce, he’s decided, since they’re always treading on thin ice around one another.

 

“Yeah. I… I said some things I wish I could take back. But so did he.”

 

 _You’re so difficult to love_ , a voice of the past yells, somewhere in the back of his mind. That was where they’d gone past the point of no return. One simple, crushing sentence on Adonis’s half. One sentence yelled out of immediate self-defense on Loki’s half. The woman at his side makes some sort of noise in the back of her throat, drawing him away from the source of the throbbing pain in his chest. “You sure do regret a lot, kid.”

 

“Oh. Guess I do.” He scratches at a flaking piece of paint on his cheek, returning his focus back to getting the river just right. He _does_ want to take back a lot of things, doesn’t he? But anyone else would want the same, if they were him. Even if they weren't...

 

Well. Who's he to say anything?

 

Dana side-eyes Loki, nudging him with her shoulder when his brush leaves the canvas. “It’s not a bad thing. Means you’ve got a living soul. Haven’t met a lot of people I can say that about. Especially in the age I’ve reached.”

 

Huh. A living soul. That’s not exactly what Loki would say he has-- whatever soul he may have no longer lives, only animating his body because the world wills it to. Without a means of living, his soul takes and takes from the memories of its host. When he’s done taking, it regurgitates everything he’s ever stolen from his empty shell back, unsatisfied with how it tastes.

 

“You’ll find more people with living souls, then,” he says, shoving paint brushes into a can full of paint water, attached haphazardly to a piece of metal he fastened to be his palette. He scratches at flaking paint on his cheekbone, other hand fixing his disaster of a ponytail. “And when you change your mind about me having one, I won’t blame you.”

 

Dana’s quiet for a moment, waiting until Loki returns his whole focus back to his canvas until she speaks. When she does, though, he finds himself barely able to make out the words. “I’ll never change my mind about you, kid.”

 

You will, he almost says. Everyone does, eventually.

 

Just give it time.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Came back to run this bitch through grammarly and fix certain things (like making it more apparent that time's passing with each little timelapse)  
> I'm really excited to post Year One of this little character study tbh? Year two is halfway done as of now, so there'll be time in between Year one and Year two. Year three will come around whenever I can get it done, honestly?


	5. [Gay Panic]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in: Queen’s Eye  
> Summary:  
> Three months after Aves returns, Ursula finds an opprotunity to reach out to Nyctea to tell her the truth. She, of course, does not go herself, and instead sends Joel and Aves in her place. 
> 
> This takes place a day after Chapter one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven’t read the previous chapter (Year One) please do! It’s one of the best works I have lined up for this collection and the most personal.

 

Ursula finds herself rather glad that their newest recruit, Agent Ren, had fixed up Panthera’s recording security speed to have little to no delay, as well as adding audio. Although it will no doubt provide some… privacy issues when it comes to any room Joel and Aves are in, she’s grateful to have eyes everywhere.

 

Especially now, when she sees Nyctea being half-dragged through the courtyard. She’s yelling at Joel, spouting off about how she wasn’t going into this base specifically, and something about it being haunted. At least, that’s what she _thinks_ she says. There’s too much British slang for it to really make full sense to her, but her brother dragging her by her arm seems to understand the whole picture, and sighs loud enough for the audio to transfer.

 

“If you stop making excuses to not see Ursula, I’ll let your current… habit continue on for your next two check-ups.” Ursula pauses at Aves’ words, still in the middle of slurping microwaved ramen. An interesting development. She blinks at Nyctea’s expression as it turns disgruntled, her free hand moving to press against the eyepatch covering her right eye. Unlike the medical one Ursula wore in the moments where she wanted to truly be alone, her’s is well worn, made of a black leather.

 

“Joel, mate, you’re my witness. If this bloke double crosses me, you’re going to call his bluff,” she says, her voice rough from disuse and sounding as tired as she looks. Ursula feels a twinge of sympathy for Nyctea despite herself. She knows that, logically, it isn’t her fault that Nyctea looks... like this, now, but still.

 

“I ain’t doin _shit_.”

 

“Oh the fuck you are! I stopped you from getting a head full of lead!”

 

“Doesn’t amount to a hill of beans!”

 

“I don’t know what the hell that means but you take that shit back right now!”

 

Aves looks away from the two, desperately, to the nearest security camera. Ursula sighs through her noodles, and pressed a button. “Joel. Nyctea. You’re making a scene. Come up to the— come up to the surveillance tower and continue this discussion… later. Preferably never, for the doctor’s sake?”

 

Nyctea immediately turns crimson, ducking so that her face isn’t visible to the camera. Joel turns a smug grin to Aves, and mouths a thank you. “We’ll be right on up, Commander. Don’t worry about a thing.”

 

She lifts her hand from the button, scoffing into her styrofoam cup. “Right,” she mutters to the empty room, “as if he doesn’t have an ulcer with his name on it.”

 

“You should see doctor Hayes about your ulcer, Commander,” supplies Panthera’s AI, unprompted.

 

“I will, I will.”

 

Tomorrow.

 

Nyctea looks like trash. It’s just an observation, in Ursula’s defense, but if she’s ever been wrong before when it comes to her, then the world’s bound to end soon. There’s bags large enough to store what can be considered to be her weapons bag and then some adorning her eyes, she’s sickly pale (well, more pale than usual), and there’s bandages visible through her half-unbuttoned shirt.

 

Neither of the men behind her mention this, though, standing with bated breath as Nyctea approaches, still maintaining enough distance for the burning against Ursula’s thigh to be bearable, and folds her arms. “I’m not apologizing,” is all she says.

 

“And I’m not expecting you to.” _I’m so glad you came back._ “You didn’t— you didn’t have anything left with us. So why come back?” _I miss you._ We _miss you. All of you._

 

She doesn’t dignify that with a response. In one swift move, she pulls her eyepatch off, and tosses it to the table in front of Ursula. “I’ve got a bounty,” she says, leaning against one of the consoles. “You still willing to take me?” _Always, always, Eye of ours. We will carry your burden like our own._

 

“Commander Emperatriz has kept track of your bounty from the day it passed ten thousand, agent Hayes.”

 

“No one asked, Panthera,” replies Joel before Ursula can dismiss it in a voice just a _bit_ too high. With a cough, she turns back to Nyctea. Stubbornly ignores the bear that’s entirely too happy to give herself away, bouncing all across her leg and vanishing under her shorts. She convinces the spirit’s thoughts to settle with a promise of speaking to Nyctea again at a later time, though it does little to soothe the sparks coursing through her nervous system.

 

“Your bounty won’t mean anything if we cover your face.” She rolls her chair back, spinning until she’s facing a table. Shoving aside screen after screen, she sends a specific copy to Nyctea. When she looks up to see the woman’s piercing eyes staring unblinkingly at her, she coughs. “I… er… May have taken the liberty of designing a new battle suit for you when Joel notified me of your arrival. I can make changes, if you’d like—“

 

“—make it white.” Is all she says after sparing a glance to the screen. Panthers adjusts the colors for Ursula, assuring her via a pop up that this is a temporary change, if she wishes. Black turns to a bright white, leaving only the yellow of trim scattered across the battle suit. Owlish, green eyes stare at her through the screen, forming a secure helmet. “I want to be seen.”

 

The bear against her thigh burns, when Nyctea shifts to sit next to her on the table, arms falling. She can see her tattoo, feathers from an owl’s tail rustling across her forearm. “Panthera can’t be like it was before, ‘cause we’re all different people from what happened, you said it yourself in that damn video you sent out.” Her voice is quieter, now, her eyes distant before she abruptly comes back to herself and stiffens just a fraction. “Well, I want to be seen. Draw all the center of attention to me for the whole battle, so they won’t be expecting _you_ until they’re already dead. They’d be too busy chasing a ghost to remember the living.”

 

Ursula looks between Joel and Aves, both still wearing their all-black regalia. The only missing accessory is Aves’ coat, currently tied around his waist. “It could work,” says the former, scratching a bearded chin, “risky and kinda stupid, but we’re talkin’ ‘bout Nyctea, so not much outta the ordinary there.”

 

She elbows him in the rib instead of replying and leans over to peer at Ursula’s screen again. “Panthera, make a note on the legs. I need to talk to Levente about getting new prosthetics." Text sprawls out amidst all of the other chaotic notes Ursula had made in the process of designing her new suit. She raises a brow at Ursula. Nods her head to the screen. Challenging her. Testing her limits.

 

So she rises to match her, like the weak woman she is. She places her screen down, looks Nyctea right in the eye before asking, “Panthera, when was the last time Nyctea had a neurological check-up?”

 

“—oh god damn—“

 

“Agent Hayes last had an examination in relations to Queen’s Eye an estimate of five and a half years ago, conducted by doctor Driscoll. The record of this checkup is secured by both of their personal codes.” Nyctea glares at the ceiling, adamant on not looking at Ursula. Or Joel. Or Aves. Especially Aves.

 

“I’m fine,” she says, voice low and dismissive. She doesn’t look to her brother when he lets out a disgruntled huff, instead focusing on her metal prosthetic foot like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen. “Nothing to get all narky over.”

 

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get a check up,” Ursula says, as kindly as she can. Nyctea glances up from her foot briefly, before sighing deep and shaking her head. “Listen, it doesn’t have to be today. I’m sure Aves would rather do anything _but_ deal with your current health problems. But just… don’t push it off, yeah?”

 

Nyctea makes a noncommittal noise, shrugging her tense shoulders. “I guess.”

 

Joel pops the bubble gum he’d been busying himself with throughout the entire conversation rather loudly, sounding the end of their conversation. He gives a wide grin to Nyctea, tossing a com directly at the back of her head. She catches it without so much as a glance in his direction. “We’re fixin to get the communal showers back in working order, since your local dumbasses tweedle dee and tweedle dum broke them arguing about shampoo. Gonna have to borrow Queenie’s shower.” Her face immediately sours, much to Joel’s amusement. “Hey, I’m not the one that waited for five months with her thumbs up her ass until she got dragged back here. Just be glad this base’s got _hot_ water.”

 

Ursula rubs at her temples, groaning at the reminder of their… shower problem. Ciro and his sister Sera were some of the more unstable of their current agents, still on a burning rampage for their brother marked as MIA in the archives. Lost not in the blast, but in a kidnapping some odd years later. Needless to say, their arguments often turned destructive.

 

“Guess it’s better than nothing,” she relents, pushing herself from the table. “We still got any of those pathetic excuses of rooms left?”

 

“Room 13,” Ursula says immediately, attention snapping up to the woman sauntering to the doorframe already. “Bottom floor. Direct path to an exit and the training room. I-- I uh, I kept it empty. Just in case.” The back of her neck feels molten, and she has to stop from squirming under the unreadable look Nyctea gives her. It’s… too much. To see the undying loyalty returning to her eyes, an ember frail enough that even the slightest misstep could extinguish.

 

“Room 13,” she echoes. A slow, wide grin crosses her thin lips. “Guess we’re in business, then. Glad to be back, your highness.”

 

——-

 

 **N. Hayes (2200)** : Mightvveve had too munch to drjnnk 

 **N. Hayes (2200)** : but duckjh baebe it’s now or nerver Injt

 **N. Hayes (2200)** : My eyeh urts. I difntt fick you uo 2 rifht,?

 **N. Hayes (2202)** : fuck

 **N. Hayes (2202** ): I shoudlnt have legit you in the ficst plsce

 **N. Hayes (2203)** : fuchk

 

 **U. Emperatriz (2230)** : You had your reasons, Nyctea. I couldn’t put the blame on you for that.

 **U. Emperatriz (2231)** : my eye is fine.

 **U. Emperatriz (2231)** : I know you don't like people telling you what you already know, but you could die if you keep this from Aves.

 **U. Emperatriz (2231)** : and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to lose you again quite so soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They’re lesbians, Harold


	6. Mercedes’ Fantasy Make-A-Wish Foundation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> World: Fantasy Groundog Day  
> After safely securing Lousaber’s blessing, Sasha wakes up in her new body just out back of a hospital with Jamie sitting guard over her. Now she finds herself dealing with the aftermath; Arlen is wounded and sick. Mercedes can no longer walk, relying on a wheelchair to move about. But the two of them find kinship in Arlen’s roommate— Titus Caldwell, an Ice Zandarian. Problem is, his kind is supposed to feel cold, and Sasha’s never felt anything but lukewarm around him.

There’s an air about the hospital that repulses Sasha. It’s not the clinical cleanliness of it all, no, she’d grown used to chaos and stillness over the centuries. Mercedes reaches up and pats her hand comfortingly, giving her a weak smile. She flexes her finger against the handles of the wheelchair she pushes, sighing deeply. “We should have let Jamie study medicine when he was still alive.”

 

Mercedes doesn’t laugh, but she does adjust the blanket over her legs. “Yes. We should have. But then we wouldn’t be here, helping those who need it most.”

 

As if on cue, Arlen groans in pain from the cot nearest to the door they’d just entered through. He presses a hand to the bandages covering his ribs, winces, and beckons for Fenris to give him his water. “Pussy,” says Sasha, rolling Mercedes past them and to the bed by the window. The other patient, staring absently out the window, startled when Mercedes pats his arm in greeting. “Hey kid, he do anything stupid yet?”

 

The bags under his eyes are worse, skin verging to plain white by this point. Stark pale blue eyes are focused when they weren’t mere seconds prior. A small smile dances across his lips as he scratches at his bandaged cheek. “Him and Fenris tried to get Al to do drugs with them.”

 

Arlen mumbles something under his breath in response, trembling hand running through the head of white hair planted in his lap with whatever strength he still has. The position is rather uncomfortable, if you wouldn't know that the two once shoved themselves into a chest for a good two hours on the odd occasion. Fenris has his body stuck halfway out of his chair, both legs hanging off of the arms and his hands reaching up to caress Arlen’s face. If he starts purring and flicking his tail harshly enough for it to make dull thuds against the floorl, no one mentions anything.

 

Mercedes smiles warmly, barely bothering to gesture for Sasha to sit a spell; she’d taken to the nightstand like a fish to water, cutting out the oil lamp with a swift gesture. “They like to get high so they don’t have to do any work. Don’t mind them. How are you feeling, Titus?”

 

Titus shrugs noncommittally, turning his attention back to the wall ahead of him. “Shitty. Lana stopped by yesterday. Almost fainted on the spot when she saw Arlen—“ Sasha turns back to her brother, who looks intently at his wounds. If she had to take a guess (getting Lana out alive was a blur), he’d taken up his death count by one and convinced Jamie to give him a pass this once. “—she nearly passed out. And I would’ve let her, motherfucker had it coming for years. Up and vanishing on me like that.”

 

Ashes fill Sasha’s lungs as white hot pain presses against her temples. She can’t see the room, can’t see Titus, only blinding light and fire burning burning  _ burning— _

 

And then it stops. She can still feel an ache lingering behind her eyes, but the reflection that meets her in the window of the room does not bear the curse of the blessed. When her hand reaches to the center of her chest she finds no scar or gaping stab wound under her tunic. Mercedes continues a silent prayer that goes unseen to all but Sasha, hand clutched over her marked shoulder. “With good reason, I’d say,” chimes in Fenris from Arlen’s lap, leaning his head back to meet Titus’s eyes. “You heard what she did didn’t you?”

 

“Doesn’t mean I couldn’t have helped her. I’m not stupid, just dense as hell.”

 

“...no,” Sasha says when she finds her voice, “no, you couldn’t. You would have just… met the end. Whatever that might be.”

 

Titus looks away from the wall, just once, to glance at Mercedes as her prayer falls to nothing, just shaking hands that cling to Sasha’s arm for dear life. “Don’t see any harm in it. Would’ve just been rushing this whole ordeal by a year or two if I’m going to be honest.”

 

A stillness settles over the room. Sasha rises from her seat to open the window. Finds relief in seeing birds fly by and people rushing about in their daily commute. She can see Alfred, too, talking to a merchant and gesturing wildly as his tail continues to waver with impatience. Titus follows her gaze, and lets out a small, breathless giggle. His smile falters, but his eyes never leave the man in the streets.

 

“The doctors say I don’t have much time left. Four months at best.” The stillness in the air turns cold. It’s not literal at first, not until pathetic bits of ice form and fall off of Titus’s hand. “Told me they might’ve been able to cure it, if I’d been able to recognize my symptoms earlier. I did, but the doctors won’t listen to that for shit and besides… well, you know how it is. Parasite eats up all you’ve got, but the fact of the matter is all you’ve got is all that keeps your body in one piece.”

 

Sasha shares a look with Arlen. Although she’d never suffered through this particular illness herself (she silently thanks Lousaber that she was born without magic up until the pact), Arlen had. It was terrible in simplest terms. In complicated terms, they’d say at his bedside as he sobbed and cried until all that was left was a small waterfall pouring out from his corpse. They had to call in Jamie to mop it up. He’d seen it all by that point. 

 

It was one of the worst deaths between them all. 

 

Titus reaches a hand out to the window, outstretching his fingers to feel the cold breeze gusting through. “I’m dying,” he says, finally turning away from the window to face Mercedes. “And I refuse to spend my last months living in this bed.”

 

She reaches over and takes his hand like it’s the simplest thing, and places it over her marked shoulder. The ore poking out on her jaw catches in the sunlight. “Then you’ll spend it wherever you wish. I swear it on my position in the Crescent of Ore. You have my word as high priestess.” 

 

He gives her a long, serious look before a mischievous light returns to his eyes. “Hella bold from someone who can’t walk.”

 

“A minor setback, as everything tends to be.”

 

“Guess you consider dying to be a minor setback too?”

 

“...on occasion.”

 

Titus lets out a high pitched laugh, his entire body rocking with the movement. Sasha doesn’t focus on him as he cackles, gaze instead turning to meet Mercedes. She doesn’t turn away to focus back on Titus, instead reaching a long and delicate hand out and beckoning to herself, lips upturned. 

 

Later, they’ll talk about how to get three hospital patients on indefinite bed rest (or for Mercede’s case, simply trapped here because they’re intent on trying to fix her) out into the streets. But for now Sasha returns to her seat and lets her girlfriend rest her head on her shoulder, and her rough hands brush through tangles of dark, silky hair. 

 

For now, they rest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original draft was that Arlen and Fenris would go through reincarnations. Titus and Alfred were one of the notable ones, and had this whole edgy story from middle school. Now that everything’s changed, I figured there was no point in shelving their characters indefinitely, and dusted them off (as well as the roles of a reincarnation of Mercedes and the ghost of Sasha, even if they’re themselves this time). I’m so happy to have them back, and even more excited that this gave me a chance to use Lana. 
> 
> Also; The Paladins left “blessings” after their respective deaths, unbridled power bestowed upon those who found their corpses. It led to disaster, and now a group of Paladins have banded together from beyond the grave to reach out to respective candidates, as whatever rose them to a higher place also keeps them from directly reaching the living plane— those pious and driven enough to not use the Blessings as their own, and strong enough to contain the power needed destroy the blessings.


	7. Higher Earth— Momoko

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> World: The Binary Star Objective   
> !!!THIS IS THE TRASHED FIRST CHAPTER!!! There are so many formatting and writing problems bro I gotta fix this shit next go at it 
> 
> Summary: Two lesbians and their babysitter (?) slash aunt slash coworker fall from Higher Earth to Lower Earth after an attack on their home, and learn that Lower Earth wasn’t as empty as the government and history books told them. 
> 
> (It’s basically WALL-E but lesbians except you can’t really tell me WALL-E isn’t a lesbian too)

* * *

When Momoko opens her eyes, head turned to the sky, she decides first to steady her breathing. There’s a familiar whir in the back of her mind as she follows the details of every cloud, memorizes the artificial stench of plant life in the air. Her hands fall limp at her side, butt of her staff meeting the laminate floor with a soft thud. This is life, she thinks. This is what I left behind.

 

And then she’s turning her gaze down, until she meets the dark, cold eyes of the woman standing robotically before her. There are android guards on either side of her, staring blankly ahead as she holds her own arm in front of her, prying away a metal panel from her skin. She rearranges wires with a click of her tongue.  _ The reaction time isn’t fast enough _ ,she thinks, knowing full well that Momoko is watching. Listening. 

 

“It won’t be an external problem, then,” she says. Her head Official, Ai, doesn’t spare her a glance, digging into the electrical guts of her arm without a moment’s hesitation. “You’ll have to have a technician manually check the programming.”

 

_ Or I can do it myself. _ Ai scoffs. Her thoughts are biting, fangs sinking into Momo’s skull.  _ Going to see someone else to fix my own work. Ridiculous.  _ Steady hands shift the staff in her hands, backing away from her official several paces. She can see the barely-noticable glow of a divider between her and Ai, paired with a notification of the name of the product, who ordered it, and every material that went into creating it. Hitting the side of her head with the butt of her palm, her vision clears. “Deal with it yourself, then. Can’t guarantee you’ll find the source, though.” Turning away from Ai, “resume simulation level twenty.”

 

“ _ Understood. Illegible El-Sayed has reached your equivalent of level thirty-five. Would you like to open a comm? _ ” A voice with no emotion, no life, fills the room. Ai opens her mouth to respond for Momo, but decides against it at the last second. Her thoughts turn to some memory of Official Eirene, as it always does. And, just as they always do, they cut off before Momo can get a taste of what they really  _ were _ . Why they’re as curt as they are now, to the point where she won’t even commandeer Momo’s decisions to avoid seeing her.

 

“No.” She never makes it past level thirty-six. Neither her nor Official Eirene explain why, but it’s easy to chalk it up to an… uneven skill difference. A light spouts from one of the holographic trees beside her, purple geometric shapes forming something vaguely resembling a person. But not quite.  _ Eliminate with proficiency, and hesitate not _ , directs Ai’s thoughts. Momo pulls her staff into both hands, crouching closer to the floor as more of her fract-light targets form in increasing waves. Some are suspended above the holo trees, sparks of purple protruding from their shins representing the AI equivalent of her boosters. Already, she knows their patterns. Those in the sky always aim for her shoulders, searching to immobilized her, while those on the ground go for killing strikes. So she lunges for the nearest target, boosters flaring to life. “Of course, miss Ai.”

 

She doesn’t dare remind her that she never goes for the killing shots her targets try to execute-- always bursting the fract-light by hitting with the side of her staff, or using it to knock them to the ground. So long as she works with force, they all fade to nothingness in the same way. And that’s what she does. Like clockwork, she watches her targets shatter on the floor, in the air, one by one like dominoes. She’s in the process of tackling the last, much larger target to the floor, when she hears the familiar hum of a door sliding open. “No, I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with the fuel tank, not the mainframe,” says one of the women who enters, her voice somewhere behind Momo. With a twist of her staff, purple light shatters, and a din tells her that she’d completed the level. “Look, ask them yourself, but I’m always right when it comes to this.”

 

“Bast  _ is _ the best mechanic in the room,” Momo says in turn, rising to her feet to meet the gaze of the El-Sayeds and another Official, who only purses his lips. His thoughts tell her that he’s nearly certain that she might finally be wrong on something, and phrases it in no manner of kindness. 

 

“Official Ai,” says the unnamed Official, turning to Ai, who had slammed the panel of her arm shut upon their entrance and was now feigning disinterest. He nods once at her, then to Momo. “Illegible Kojina. We’re currently having...difficulties with the Prometheus. It’s no longer responding to any of our tests, nor is it powering up. You can see a detailed report sent to both of your comns. Illegible El-Sayed believes that there’s a malfunction in the fuel tank, affecting the power lines to the mainframe.”

 

Ai pulls up the report without so much as greeting her coworker, cold eyes guarded. She only looks up once, and it’s to look at Eirene, who seems more interested in getting Bast to elaborate on her fuel-tank theory than talking with any other Official. Momo follows suit, eyes scanning over the display of a ship  _ she _ designed, once upon a time. Most of her designs and technical implementations were kept the same, except--

 

“It’s the fuel tank.” The holo-display from her bracer immediately collapses back in on itself with a simple gesture, revealing the exasperated Official. And Bast, now smiling smugly. Her yellow eyes are piercing. Momo feels warm. Her suit’s temperature control must be malfunctioning. “I specifically told the engineers that the fract-light diffuser was  _ necessary _ . There’s no way of working around it; the diffuser was the only thing keeping the whole ship from overheating or short circuiting.”

 

The Official turns to Ai, who only cocks a brow at him and runs her hand through electric pink hair. Too… colorful for such a harsh woman. Pressing a hand against a button on her left bracer, she speaks. “All engineers responsible for building the Prometheus, you are to be on the deck by the time I arrive. If any of you lie to me, or don’t show up at all, I  _ will _ know. You have ten minutes.” She steps back from the invisible barrier separating her from the others, arms folding across her chest.  _ Whoever did this is a traitor to the United World. They will suffer a million deaths and then some for even  _ thinking _ about disregarding Illegible word-- _

 

“--Not a traitor,” corrects Eirene, speaking before her niece can beat her to the punch. There’s something… frustrated, about the way she looks at her fellow Official. “Just arrogant.” Bast levels Brayden with a look while her aunt does the same for Ai.

 

“I’ll have to...see to these engineers, then. Official El-Sayed, can you return Illegible Kojina to her quarters? I trust you far more than I trust these hunks of metal.” Ai gestures to the androids behind her, now glaring in her general direction. Momo gets the feeling that, if they had readable thoughts, Ai wouldn’t particularly like them.

 

“We’re not made of metal,” says one android, narrowing their eyes at the ground. “You’re made of more metal than anyone in this room combined, actually. No offense.”

 

Ai straightens, coughing into her hand abruptly. The fake one. Or was it the real one? Momo couldn’t tell these days. Eirene’s thoughts are muddled at the sight, a confusing string of the pros and the cons of Ai, one that Momo can’t sift through and never tries to, before it simply turns into a chant about pink elephants. “Be careful, mark GY-623, keep that up and one day someone will actually report you for a sentience bug.” GY-623’s lip quirks. It’s the closest anyone can get to seeing a sentient android laugh. They watch Ai turn and leave without any further warning, her hands clasped together behind her back.

 

“They haven’t yet,” they say, almost too quiet to be heard. But Momo can hear them, even over the din of the barrier between them. 

 

“So,” says Bast, ignoring Brayden as he excuses himself, “fuel tanks.”

 

“The bane of our existence, it seems,” Momo says, fitting her staff into a cavity in the wall. The room was empty, now, with pristine white covering all of her vision. It smells cold. “I suppose it’s water under the bridge now. Not for the engineers, obviously. I shudder at the thought of what hell miss Ai’s going to bring.”

 

Eirene gestures for the Illegibles to follow her, thoughts mirroring the same sentiment. She fixes her hijab absently, eyes set dead ahead. “Personally, they shouldn’t be afraid of Ai. gives her too much power.”  _ But that’s just me. Knowing too much about Ai. _ “Besides. They’d stop seeing her as some almighty god if they watched her microwave a fork to see if she could find a way to weaponize it.”

 

“She blew up her apartment,” Bast happily supplies, “and refused to leave her apartment to face what she’d done.”

 

“Did...Did she--”

 

“--yes,” says the El-Sayeds, in exhausted unison. Neither of them need to hear the thoughts that don’t reach their skulls to know that Momo is just as aware of her Official’s tendencies as they are. “She made a bomb.”

 

Interesting. Though it would be too dangerous, and the rest of her officials had banned the primitive creations of microwaves ages ago, she  _ would _ like to know how you can create such a thing.

 

Well, another time, maybe.

 

“How was your training?” She instead asks, turning away from her fellow Illegible and her Official. “It went well, I hope?”

 

“Oh,  _ great _ ,” says Bastet, already grinning to the ears. She walks with a bounce in her strides, pride in those synthetic yellow eyes of her’s. “I made some sick moves in the training, threw Eirene off her rythmn--”

 

_ She still lost. _

 

The corners of Momo’s lips twitch. “Terribly, I hope?”

 

Eirene’s smile is no less hidden, crawling across her face with ease. Her laugh lines become more prominent than ever, as her warm, dark eyes glance to her. “It was wonderful, I assure you. A valiant effort indeed, though she still ended up face-first on the floor with a sword nearly in her back.”  _ Worried she was hurt, had to check her vitals, had to ask her if she was okay, didn’t want to go on-- _ silence. Eirene inhales deeply from some hunk of plastic she’d pulled from her back pocket, exhaling bits of glowing dust from her nose. No one ever explained to her what it was. Just that it helped center your thoughts. Bastet thinks it might be a drug of some kind, and has mentioned such on numerous occasions. Eirene neither confirms nor denies such, always grunting and focusing her now calm thoughts on mundane things. Like a cat she once saw twelve years ago. But when she thinks of that cat she ends up thinking about her old squadron (a very useless data log appears in her right eye.  _ Squadron 1259-UW, status disbanded. Divised of the most lethal officials in the world. Members currently known by user are Eirene El-Sayed and Hayashi Ai of the Illegible department, sectors originating from the Egyptian and Japanese district. _ It goes on and on of more information that she’d picked up from databases. With a shake of her head, it’s gone) which leads to this whole ordeal that leads to her taking another drag. “Made her say uncle, and then Official  _ jackass _ cut our session short.”

 

Bastet’s shock immediately gives way to amusement. “Brayden is a real specimen.” Brightening, “oh! You think we can work on a prototype of something that can pull that stick from his--”

 

“ _ \--Bast _ .”

 

Momo holds up a hand. “No, official El-Sayed, it’s quite alright. We would all find use for such a prototype, and really, if there’s any celestial force that’s put us on this planet, it must be to create an extraction tool for...”

 

She trails off, smile fading as she sees other officials at the end of the hall. The silence that settles over them isn’t practiced, nor is it out of habit. The officials’ thoughts reach Momo with a swiftness known to all, conversing lowly in Japanese. Their eyes are cold and unfeeling, but never quite as terrifying as miss Ai. One on the right greets the Illegibles lowly. Regards Eirene with an unsubtle coldness. No one notes the frigid air, or tries to make small talk about the weather.

 

It always used to upset Momo when officials spoke of the weather. She guesses they’ve caught on. Only took a decade. 

 

The officials vanish out of sight, but her tense shoulders remain squared, eyes steeled on the end of the hallway, never glancing to the barren walls that have no windows. None of them speak, for the remainder of the walk. Not until Eirene is pulling a holo-card from her ear piece, pressing it into a slot in a door. She watches with a blank expression as an engineer balks at the gathered group from a connected room. “Forgive me, Illegibles, I wasn’t expecting-- I, er--” a sigh. “Illegible Kojina, your other engineers had to leave to report to the Prometheus. I tried to contact Official Ai, but…” the engineer gestures vaguely. They take a step back, receding into the conjoined room that Momo knows well. The lights are still on, and she can see the reflection of the exam table, bouncing off of that ridiculous mirror. 

 

“I can run diagnostics myself, then.” She doesn’t look her engineer in the eye, focused on removing her boosters at the point where cold floor turns into synthetic carpet. “No need to over exert yourself. Consider it an unofficial day off. That is, if you don’t report this to miss Ai.”

 

Bastet laughs, a quiet sound only meant to be heard by her other half, as she crouches and follows suit in the removal of boosters. ‘Good luck with that’ she mouths, before turning her amused eyes down to the floor.

 

The engineer looks from Momo, to Bastet, then, finally, to Eirene. The , with a resigned sigh, they say “Good day,” before vanishing behind the already closing door. Bastet lingers while Momo doesn’t, moving past her neat bed and to her desk, holo-notes scattered across the pristine surface. 

 

“What did you do to that poor engineer, miss Eirene.” The woman only laughs at Momo’s accusatory tone good-naturally from the doorway.

 

“Nothing,” she says, then, when Momo hones in on her, “ _ Nothing _ . Okay, I might’ve stared her down. It isn’t dangerous or threatening or anything, just something that Leonard taught me.”

 

_ [Leonard Alfonsi. Aged thirty-seven. Italian division. special ops tactics. Married to Ben McClain, aged thirty-six.] _

 

A blip in her display of Leonard’s information. What follows is familiar, but one single line stands out.

 

_ [Both Leonard and Ben are honored as members of Squadron 1259-UW.] _

 

She dismisses it without a second thought about it. Bastet glances at her side-long, head cocked in a silent question. No need for telepathy-- they’d learned to read each other well enough.  _ What did you find out? _

 

A brief shrug of the shoulders, head inclined to the floor.  _ I’ll tell you later. _

 

It was like clockwork, with the two of them. Every time the programming in her skull permitted new information, set off by any number of phrases, Bastet would know. How, Momo still has yet to know. She convinces herself it’s the act of clearing the mainframe that alerts her.

 

A blip.

 

_ [Illegible Bastet El-Sayed is not known for being able to study mannerisms with accuracy.] _

 

Momo finds herself scoffing, clearing the notification as she seats herself at her desk, spinning it around to face Eirene. Almost abesntly, she bangs against one of her drawers at the side of her desk, satisfied when the electrical whir tells her that it’s opening. “Are you not going to stay, miss Eirene?” She asks, keeping a steady voice. Shows no preference for wanting her to stay or not-- Bastet was staying, it seemed, so it would be greedy of her to ask for more.

 

Eirene says nothing for a while, her thoughts equally as empty, not quite focused on anything. It has nothing to do with her recent dosage of Euphoric Synthesis, Momo duly notes. The rest of her didn’t seem entirely there.  _ Report, El-Sayed _ , commands a voice in the back of the woman’s thoughts, taking on a voice that wasn’t her own. A fleeting memory. “No,” she says, giving a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I have to finish a simulation with my soldiers. I would say you’re invited to join us, but…” she trails off. What she doesn’t say, her thoughts provide.  _ They wouldn’t like you going outside. _

 

Bastet’s ever present smile falters a fraction as she digs through Momo’s tools and wires. But the Illegible seated at the desk only waves, offering no smile, but a nod of reassurance.  “It is fine. I’ve been meaning to fix my biotic enhancements for some time, anyway. Don’t think anything of it, miss Eirene.”

 

“Enhancements,” mutters the girl beside her, shaking her head wryly. Eirene bids the two farewell, seeming to not hear her niece, and closes the automatic door behind her. “So that’s what they’re calling them.”

 

“Enhancements, improvements, modifications, an entire re-working of preexisting faulty conditions, they are what they are.”  With one hand, Momo gathers up a good chunk of her hair-- enough to expose the port slash panel embedded into the back of her skull. The other ties it up in one swift motion before landing back to an idle spot on the holographic keyboard. “A gift.”

 

Her shoulders tense, after the words leave her lips knowing full well how she’d react. Whipping her head up to face Bastet, her mouth begins to open with an apology, traitorous eyes lingering on her other half’s own modifications. “Don’t,” Bastet says instead, before any apology can be spoken, “it’s fine. Just think… would you have let them make these adjustments to the tech if they asked?”

 

Idle electrical humming, from one device or another. Momo’s thoughts are halted, her free hand hesitating just above the port, plug in hand. Official Hayashi had made the adjustments to her artificial enhancements shortly after they’d removed her from her home. She’d been asleep, of course, and thought the adjustments were quite unnecessary. But now she relies on them almost unnaturally. Her memory has been scattered, lately, and the mainframe supplied what she’d once known but long shoved to some deep recess in her mind. She could have adapted, though, without it. She always has. “I… I do not know,” she simply settles on saying, forcing the plug into the port. Her eyesight immediately goes dark, though she soon enough finds herself looking through walls and walls of text. “I never think about it for long.”

 

Baster hums next to her, and she comprehends her hands grabbing one of her own, settling it into a specific spot. “You should find the source code of your mainframe first,” she suggests, “since they upgraded it recently. You noticed a bug, didn’t you?”

 

“Minor, but yes. I did.” The electronic hum in her skull continues as the text scrolls down and down and-- oh. There it is. The coding is too different from her old engineers-- sticks out like a sore thumb. “Earlier, with the notification,” she says, as she sets to work reviewing each line of code by the letter, “the AI allowed me to know of two other colleagues of Eirene’s. Leonard Alfonsi and Ben McClain. Do they sound familiar to you at all?”

 

Gentle snapping of Bastet gathering her thoughts. When she speaks, it’s loud and excited. “Oh, yeah! I remember! Eirene never really talked about them, but she got news that Ben got some award for his genetic engineering-- apparently he made some serum that immediately became illegal but the public was all ‘give him an award, cowards’, so… that happened. That wasn’t what I remembered, though.” A silence falls over the two, and Momo is content with her answer stopping there-- It’s more than enough information. Enough for it to appear if he’s mentioned further. But Bastet always does surprise her. “Leonard was at the ceremony. I couldn’t read their thoughts, through the TV. But Eirene looked… happy to see them, when they approached her.”

 

No further elaboration is needed. It is no secret that Eirene is often troubled when it comes to the work she did before taking in Bastet and assimilating a position of power in the UWID. Miss Ai was the shining example. So they delve into their usual, comfortable silence. Occasionally she’ll hear a small voice whisper a correction in her mass of code, and when it came time to investigate the internal wiring of her skull, she was all the more willing to assist in a more… hands on form. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes,,,, the apex of my writing career,,, the bastard that I cranked out and got tennis elbow for,,, love you you sad sci-fi bitch
> 
> (Please the previous chapters if you haven’t,,, the last chapter has a character extremely dear to me considering the boy was my first ever original character (it’s Titus,,) and he deserves love too)


	8. May I Stand Unshaken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Immortal Aliens end up on Earth without a fucking clue who they are, become outlaws, and end up becoming famous seven times over. It should be noted, meanwhile, that this is a new concept with absolutely no fucking work title other than the character page, which is just  
> "Sick Guitar Twangs".  
> Concept: Earth is a magical anomaly. Other planets with high levels of magic have randomly appearing portals depending on the fluctuations of Earth. Two amnesiacs, a fish lady who watched her family die, and an exile fall through one on two separate planets on three separate occasions. Together these dumbasses have one collective braincell. These are their stories.

**May 25, 1845**

 

It starts with a dust storm too far out from the nearest town for anyone to get stuck in it and, if they did, they’d know from the moment lightning struck the epicenter that they had to get the hell out of there. Anyone who’s been around longer than a human should live, however, would wait and watch with bated breath.

 

For in the eye of the storm, a brilliant light shines through for miles. It fades, leaving two forms crumpled in the dirt. The first to move is smaller in size than the other, and its shape writhes and wiggles with exertion. Slowly, painfully, an arm extends and slams into the dirt. Then a second. Then a third. Then a fourth. And as it pulls itself up, shapes move upon its marked back. Wings burst from it at the same moment it lets out a noise, frantic and searching as it looks around the storm, one of its wings held up to cover it from the dust. The second form moves to catch up with it, making a similar sound that’s cut off by two sets of arms wrapping tightly around it.

 

When they pull apart, they see a figure in the storm. He moves his hat to greet them but doesn’t move any closer. Instead, a wave of warmth washes over them.

 

The first turns herself away from the warmth and draws her brother forward. “Pick a name, children,” calls out the figure in a language they don’t understand, but only for a moment. Because the first watches a child grow up, at that moment, and learns the language alongside this child. Her parents call the child Winnifred. The second sees further than she, watching a child grow up at the tail-end of an era of outlaws and glory. “Pick a name, and use it wisely.”

 

The dust settles thirty minutes later. Winnifred and Virgil are found where it struck the worst, in tattered clothing and dust-covered glasses obscuring their eyes. They’re breathing, thankfully, chests rising in tandem. The woman that finds them halts her wagon abruptly and brushes pink-gold hair from their dark skin. Her hands tingle with energy that she excuses for adrenaline when they make contact with skin and check their exposed skin for injury. 

 

“Hey, partners, don’t mind yourselves none,” She says when they both startle awake, five hours later. They make eye-contact, underneath colorful glasses that reflect the sunlight. On the nightstand between them sits two glasses of water. Both take to it like a man lost in the desert. “Nasty storm that was y’all got caught in. Name’s Mary.”

 

“Winnifred,” offers the sister, polishing off her glass and brushing long hair from her view. “You-- the order you were making, is it--”

 

“--She’ll make it tomorrow,” says the other, cutting in before she could get a word in edgewise. He smiles, a wide, unsettling thing that would make a lesser woman flinch. Mary, naturally, is not a lesser woman, because she was the only jackass that decided to ride the tail end of a sandstorm to deliver cheese. “I’m Virgil. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mary.”

 

Mary smiles warmly, seemingly dazed, before she slams the palm of her hand into her head. “Damn! Mama ain’t raise me to be such a shitty host. Y’all must be starving, right? I’ve been fixing up dinner, thinkin it was about time at least one of ya woke up and--”

 

Winnifred holds up a hand, her smile the gentler end of the same terrifying spectrum. “Miss, don’t tie yourself up into knots. I… believe you’re the best host we’ve ever had in our miserable little lives.” Waving vaguely to her brother, “I just reckon we ought to clean up a bit first is all. No use joining you for supper in clothes fulla holes.”

 

When she leaves the room, Virgil slowly turns to his sister with an even wider, fanged grin. “Fancy way of saying that we ain’t remember if we’ve ever had another host before and that we stink like all get out, Winnie.”

 

No sooner than he says that does a pillow come sailing through the air to hit him square in the face. He would have seen it coming, on any other day. 

 

But today they’ve just been born. Virgil knows that at some point, he’ll come to realize that what he sees isn’t normal, so he’ll keep from mentioning it in public. For now, he moves with sluggish movements, Mary’s future for the next year hitting him in waves. He knows they’re in every one of them, though he can never properly focus on what they look like with precision. Winnie, meanwhile, will mention her abnormality to Virgil late one night, sobbing because someone has just  _ died _ , and no one mourned for them. No one remembered all that they did when they were gone.

 

Today, a pair of Twins were just born without a clue who they are.

 

And someone _will_ remember them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I should stop projecting onto my characters  
> Also me: Let's make another set of twins but put them in the Wild West for fun and profit
> 
> (Fact; for this story alone I fully intend on stealing a book from my school library called the Encyclopedia of the Wild West. It will be returned, but I need this thick fuckin book for yeehaw indulgence)


	9. The Past Catches Up To The Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> World: The Sanctum Monster Hunter Alliance
> 
> Virgil has been in the SMHA since it's birth in 1987. He refused to be an active member unless one of the hunter's lives were in danger, on the account that he was trying to keep a specific timeline intact. He keeps it under lock and key effectively, and soon enough, in 2002, the promised year, he rolls up to Glenn's farm, the SMHA HQ, with his sister Winifred, on the trail of a dragon threatening to become hostile. He knows that today, she'd learn just exactly what the other monster hunters across the world had been up to. Only, she's yet to realize anything other than her brother is full of shit.

 

Virgil knows something. Granted, he typically does, but for the past few days, he’s been stubbornly tight-lipped about  _ something _ in the future that Winifred’s noticed and she typically doesn’t care much unless she knew it was about them, which. Well, then if Virgil could figure out that they had some sort of future through someone else, he’d usually tell her. 

 

His knees are tight to his chest, his brows stuck scrunched together in concentration as he furiously scribbles in his notebook. He only looks up, once or twice, and mumbles something about them having to turn right or turn around. “You  _ sure _ the dragon went this way?” Winifred asks for about the fifteenth time, adjusting her own glasses as she glares at the farmland appearing a way down, outlined by trees. Virgil makes a noncommittal noise. He only finally looks up for longer than a second when Winifred yanks his pencil out from under him.

 

“Yes, we’re going the right way,” he says immediately, holding his open journal to his chest and extending his hand, palm up. “Give me that back now?”

 

The pencil lands into the cup holder in her door with a clack. “Uh-uh. Whatchya writing about?”

 

“I’m drawing.” He contorts himself to shove half his arm under his seat, grinning wide when he comes back up with another pencil, and resumes his sketch. Glancing up at Winifred, “It’s someone you wouldn’t know. Stop here.”

 

“Virg, are you drawin’ another person you’ve never met because they strike your fancy?” Virgil turns exceedingly red at the cheeks, shifting his glasses further up his nose to hide the way he’s stubbornly  _ not _ looking at his sister. “Dude, we’ve talked about this typa shit.”

 

“I mean… Well, it ain’t like I haven’t  _ not _ met him, I just don’t think he… knew what I was, really.” Still drawing like a man gone mad, he hops straight through his open window and onto the side of the road the moment she puts them into park. “And technically he does now, but he still doesn’t know that was me? Fuck, Winnie, that was a loaded question and I don’t rightly know how to answer it without screwing things up.”

 

Still just as ominous as everything else about him the past few days, but it’s more than what she’s been getting, so Winifred lets it drop and pulls her rifle from the trunk. “So, I was thinking a quick scope, see if anyone’s seen some shit they weren’t meant to?”

 

“Yeah, sounds good,” says Virgil in a way suggesting that he wasn’t at all listening to her, and his far-away eyes didn’t do much to say otherwise. Still, he wanders off in the opposite direction from her, turning a sharp right and heading down the path of a farm a little way down. 

 

She makes it halfway to the first house when the past hits her. She saw it in the background, lingering and waiting for her to open the flood of memories, but only decided to rip the band-aid off, metaphorically speaking, when she saw a woman hunched over a desktop with a busted lip, a larger man looking absolutely exhausted peering over her shoulder. Both were wounded from a monster attack-- and the man, named Glenn, was going to die. But he didn’t because….

 

...because…

 

...Fog in his words, fog pouring out of his mouth, and she can see over their shoulders, see the blurry text appearing in rapid succession, but she can’t hear it and she can’t read it in the same way they do, the man moving to furiously type on another desktop across the room while glancing sternly at a bleeding bite mark on his skin. 

 

But fog in the past meant Virgil. It always leads to Virgil.

 

So she opens the curtains and braces herself against an old fence as the history of a Network-- monster hunters from a like world and with a like hatred for the monsters that fell to Earth in the same way they did. They didn’t age, the same way she didn’t, and she could see the bags under Glenn’s eyes deepen and the fury in the spunky woman named Mallory grow and fester. Unfamiliar faces that she gets to know on a personal level that she knows she  _ shouldn’t _ , but couldn’t stop the flood once it’d begun.

 

When she comes back, she’s sitting on a bench next to Virgil on a familiar porch. “I hate you,” she says immediately, slumping against the back of Glenn’s bench and pulling her rifle to her side. 

 

He doesn’t look up from his note journal. There’s a sketch in the middle of his sprawling cursive of a pendant. She doesn’t have to look long to know it’s Glenn’s. Why he has a page dedicated to it, she doesn’t bother to ask. “I know.”  The lead of his pencil snaps, and he takes in a sharp breath. 

 

“Something changed.” It’s never a question, no, not when she’s had centuries to learn how her brother navigates the future.

 

“Yeah, I-- uh-- It’s not…” He scrambles to find his words, ears pink and his glasses askew. He dusts off the broken graphite from the paper, still snapping with his free hand. “It ain’t bad. Pretty good, I reckon, but it’s just… Shit came outta left field on my end.” 

 

“You or me?”

 

“You. I think. I mean… I can’t say anything, but I know it couldn’t be me.”

 

“Huh. Shit.”

 

An hour passes with the two of them scribbling furiously into their journals before Virgil snaps his shut with a broad grin, and pockets it into the inside of his largest jacket. “They’re coming.”

 

Winifred stands her rifle up and grips the barrel with intent, her own journal vanishing into the vast expanse of her skirt’s pockets. Sure enough, after another minute of waiting, two figures appear at the very edge of the dirt path. Glenn’s more tired than in her vision the more he approaches, shotgun strapped across his back and eyes squinting at the porch. Mallory is the first to start approaching at a faster rate, harpoon in hand and black boots kicking up dirt in her wake. “Goddamnit, Mal you know I’ve got asthma right now!” Shouts Glenn, still jogging after her anyway.

 

Mallory is gorgeous. It might just be her human disguise, but there’s nothing that can ever compare her vision to reality. Her eyes are just barely off, just barely a muddy shade of yellow, and the scars across her neck could be played off as stretch marks if she wanted to try. Glenn… Has his own perks, and Virgil must see something in him that Winifred can’t because he’s suddenly frozen in place, hands clasped tightly in his lap and betraying the casual stance he’s taken next to her. “Y’all sure did take your time!” He calls out once he’s composed himself and they’re now only a good ten feet away. He lets his hands linger on the railing of the porch, his broad smile never faltering. Glenn’s stopped a good twelve feet away, however, shellshocked and trying very hard to hide it. Virgil’s smile falls into something more genuine when he seems to notice this, and he shifts his scarf to show off more of his face. “It’s nice to see you again, Glenn.”

 

“What do you mean  _ again _ ?” Asks Mallory, shifting her harpoon to her other hand, shoulders still tense. Winifred would’ve asked the same if she didn’t know the answer already. Glenn ignores her entirely, mouth still agape in shock. 

 

“You--I-- Vigilance? You? This whole time?” He presses, taking hesitant steps forward. Virgil nods, and pushes his sunglasses to the top of his head, extending a hand.

 

“Virgil Brooks.”

 

“I-- Shit, I’m Glenn Byrd. Guess you know that right about now anyway,” he says, shaking Virgil’s hand. Winifred doesn’t have to watch the whole thing to know he’s got a firm hand. Like Mallory's neck, his exposed forearms reveal lines upon lines of bizarre scars, too... unnatural to be given by any human means. She hadn’t looked too far into their pasts, but she’s seen enough to fill in the blanks. “This right here is Mallory. And you are…?”

 

“Winifred Brooks. My brother’s a right bastard for keeping this timeline set for whatever reason he had, but I’m glad we met eventually.” Adjusting her own glasses, she surveys Glenn about as openly as she ever would. Her visions never gave her much in relation of people, but while Mallory doesn’t feel like much at all, there are waves of energy flowing off of him, weak and moving like an uneven heartbeat. “I already know how to get into the Network today, and we’re never in the same place at once right now, so you don’t have to worry about trying to track me down.”

 

The sigh that leaves Glenn is very much resigned. “Yeah, I figured. Well, you two might as well come in while you’re here.”

 

“Oh, we were definitely going in whether you invited us or not,” Virgil pipes up, following Glenn close at the heels. “I mostly stayed out here as a formality more than anything. Also, putting your spare key under the planter is an awful idea.”

 

“I’ve been telling him that, but he doesn’t listen.”

 

Glenn gestures to his shotgun, then himself, sighing for a good forty seconds. “Okay, but consider also; you need to stay alive.” Virgil pulls out a dining room chair with the practiced ease of someone who’s done it thousands of times before while Winifred does the same next to him. 

 

“Oh? And why’s that? You got a plan forming in that old head of yours?”

 

Virgil laughs, high and loud. Then he coughs, and his expression shifts to something more solemn but just as carefree. “Naw. Nothing like that.” And he leaves it at that. Glenn grunts, seemingly unsatisfied but used to answers like this after their few times talking. “Winnie’s more likely to get some devilish plan.”

 

“That’s bullshit and you know it. I ain’t the one that planned our first three robberies and I sure as hell ain’t the one that decided that we were gonna join a whole lot of monster hunters.”

 

Mallory stops digging dirt from under her nails, suddenly interested. “First  _ three _ ?”

 

“We needed money, and the rich bastards on those trains had it. Ain’t nothing to it.” Virgil put a sudden hand on Glenn’s arm and pulled him into the chair he quickly removed himself from, twisting around and vanishing into the kitchen. “I’ll deal with drinks. Y’all rest, Winnie can fill you in on what we’ve been up to these past few decades.”

 

The moment Virgil vanishes, however, Winifred turns back to them with her widest smile. Mallory chews on one of her lip piercings. She could, theoretically, fill them in. Not much happened-- she wrote a couple… twenty… no, thirty biographies and three fantasies, Virgil got to do the covers for all of them and told her which ones would sell the best, and they hunted down monsters as pit stops across the continent. But Glenn and Mallory wouldn’t care much about that, not while they’re strangers, anyway. So she scoots to the edge of her seat and says,

 

“Y’all ever wanted to hunt a dragon?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Virgil and Winifred Brooks, happy immortal twin rowdy boys VS Aves and Nyctea Hayes, angsty supersoldier idiot twins
> 
> FIGHT!


	10. Waking Up at the Bottom Of The World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> World: The Binary Star Project
> 
> Illegible Momoko Kojina wakes up on Lower Earth without her eyesight. Arsinoe takes it upon herself to keep them both alive, until they find their handler.

The inky blackness does not fade, even as she blinks in an attempt to activate her bioenhancements. A blindness so long without that she nearly startles at the concept. Her first breath is the most painful, lungs constricting against bruised lungs as she takes in air the same way a man near death beneath ocean waves does when his head breaks through the crest. This is, of course, the first confirmation that she hasn’t died yet. She coughs, and takes no revelry in how her voice scratches against her throat, tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.

 

She smells trees, nature all around her overwhelming and unfamiliar. Dew against grass, mold on concrete. The rot of dying plants and the fungus that overcomes them, the stench of corpses far off but still near and the burnt flesh of her own cauterized wounds. No clinical reek of chemicals and lemons, no artificial air fresheners to satisfy her appetite for true open air. She tries to stand to no avail-- a hand grasps weekly to soft fabric wrapped around her middle, legs trembling as she collapses back against the harsh floor. Feeble, prone, she cannot stand on her own just yet, not without a reason to.

 

A voice, shocked and appalled. Tender reassurances and touches, grimy hands against grimy faces that cannot see. Painkillers passed from palm to lip, forced down a dehydrated throat. Water that drips from a fissure in the ceiling and thuds against the bottom of a metal bucket. Finally, footing against the grass, a comforting hand in hers. Footsteps that echo, conversation carried out in hushed whispers.

 

Cold that seeps into her bones. She shivers, pulls her thin jacket tighter around her shoulders as the stench of death forces itself to give her attention to it. Footsteps not her own, not the feet belonging to the comforting hand in hers, too heavy but far enough that they stop dead in their tracks. 

 

Unease settles in her stomach as she’s forced to rest herself against a cold metal cabinet.  _ Stay here _ , says the hand in hers when the voice cannot speak for fear of attracting attention. A bird sings, far off, and bugs swarm in the room. Life that she can never see, life that was thought long dead. Dread, when a man’s voice yells, and others join him.

 

The squelch of a blade hacking into human flesh. A thud, the copper and zinc of blood heavy in the air as the only familiar thing to her grunts, voice labored, the sound continues. Over and over, hot blood spilling over the counter and onto her hand, trembling against the rotting wooden floor. A gunshot, windows shattering, a curse. The counter shudders under the force of her companion slamming something against its flat surface again and again.

 

Silence. The birds continue to sing, as she reaches out blindly until a soft, sunken cheek is against her palm, thick curls brushing against her fingertips and lashes fluttering shut. Dirt covers skin, fresh tears falling from gentle eyes that can no longer ground her, a smile growing across full lips even as someone lets out their last trembling breath. 

 

The halls are crumbling, foundations strong even though nature overtakes what humanity stole from her. Her free hand follows the leaves, follows tattered curtains, hoping to find peace in the ghosts of years past. Their voices filter through the building as early morning sun warms her face. An explanation of where they are, where they need to get before nightfall. Hope of others able to help, able to fix the bioenhancements broken in her skull. 

 

Shadows that seize her heart, unseen but not unknown. More coming, something is coming, though she cannot hear it, cannot see it, cannot smell it. The hand in her own stills. A hilt of a blade pressed into her other hand, a security should all else fail. 

 

It will. This is no certainty that comes from a place of doubt without sight, no-- an assuredness that they were never meant to survive like this. Never in the wild, never on their own.

 

A kiss against the top of her hair, a calloused thumb rubbing comfort into her tense jaw. A promise, whispered quiet enough that the shadows pause in their search. Bullets that shatter what little windows remain in the building, a voice shouting far, far off to find her. A warning of those already dead, to keep their wits about them.

 

Feet hurrying, thudding against the floor as they run. Her chest aches, her legs tremble, and the wound in her stomach protests, but she does not stop. The hand in hers twists around a corner as footfall follows. An discord in their shouts, in her own thudding heart as her mind twists, struggles to wrap itself around the senses that pound against her temples, too much, too many, all at once.  Algae in water that once belonged to a plumbing system, now a winding river in the cracked foundations of a side street. Mold growing along the surface of asphalt, gunpowder heavy in the air. The splash of water as her feet slam against the bottom, rocks tearing through the soles of her shoes. A sputtering of an engine as it wheezes and roars along, not focused on them, never focused on them. 

 

Again, as her throat makes a desperate sound, feet tripping over feet; they were not meant to survive like this. 

 

But they will, so long as they were together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What’s up welcome to Catholic school, AKA a four year long challenge to see how many writing assignments I can shove lesbians into without anyone noticing

**Author's Note:**

> Starting off short and sweet! This work is from a school project, utilizing Nyctea, a morally grey vigilante that underwent an experimental procedure called Project Queen's Eye, connecting her spirit link (to later be explained; Aves was a doctor and shoved his head where he shouldn't), to her soon to be boss.


End file.
